Out of Character

Monday, June 18, 2007

Rrrribbit.

In addition to its host of other problems my car started making a really weird sound last week. It's like a slide whistle sound. Yeah, no, I'm serious. And it's loud. In sixteen years of neglectful auto ownership I've heard my fair share of jacked up car noises, but nothing that ever sounded like the circus came to town in my center console. It's always so out of nowhere and so ridiculous that when I hear it I can’t help screaming something. It seems like the only acceptable response to a loud noodle noise in my car is to yell, “OH MY GOD, WHAT?” It’s happened that I spaz out and bark something rhetorical at the sound only to hear it again immediately, only louder. Then I get kind of scared so I just settle back to ten-and-two and shut my mouth. The first five or six times I heard it I tried to convince myself it was my imagination so I wouldn't have to tell Randy my car's generating spontaneous clown noises. Because the second I go, "No, it's like a bloooooooooo-oooooooooop! sound," he's going to completely lose his shit.

And you know it's going to be one of those sounds that no one else will ever, ever hear-- the Michigan J. Frog of car noises, if you will-- and after four years of me going, "No, wait, shhhh! Just listen. Keep driving. Shut up! JUST KEEP DRIVING! FUCKING LISTEN!" and Randy twirling his forefinger near his temple and throwing me under the bus every time anyone mentions the word "car" and "noise" in the same paragraph, I'll go loudly insane and jam a fondue fork in his ear.

Having said that, I have to do something. I can't go on like this. The upshot is that I'm pretty sure a slide whistle sound isn't indicative of something morbidly wrong with the car, but it's like I'm driving around with Peter Frampton all the time. A Peter Frampton jack-in-the-box. Do they make those? Because they shouldn't.

¶ posted by Erin on Monday, June 18, 2007

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