More realities of car ownership

It looks like this weekend I’m going to have to engage in that odious all-American practice of “working on my car.” What I’m discovering, in this new life of biking, is that owning a car presents tedious maintenance chores even if you barely use it.

Among other things, it appears that some terribly organic entity has died a thousand deaths in my trunk. The weather's supposed to be nice, which is motivating since (1) I won’t have to stand out in the rain, and (2) any sun rays aimed at the car threaten to render the vehicle unapproachable if I wait any longer, by anyone except maybe a police homicide squad.

I’m praying for rotten food, as opposed to some animal that hopped in unnoticed while I was unloading the groceries. That exact thing happened once, to Lindi’s car. A cat jumped in -– and it was summer. We discovered it in time, but barely, and the poor thing staggered off before we could think to catch it and take it to a vet for rehydration. (Who knows what its owner thought -- Oh, look what the cat dragged in – its own self! Animals need to learn to speak English, that’s all there is to it.)

The last time something stunk in my trunk, I finally found a hardboiled painted Easter egg in a ski boot. This time smells worse than that.