Car troubles

We received a friendly e-mail communication from a neighbor recently, in which he casually mentioned that the previous night had been such a fine night that he and his wife (and cat and dog) had slept with their windows open, which normally is an enjoyable experience for them (and presumably for the cat and dog). On this particular night, however, their enjoyment of the fine evening had been severely curtailed, at least from 2:30 to 3:30 a.m., by the sound of a car alarm going off in the parking lot behind our homes. For some reason he believed this to concern us, probably because the car in question is Joe's, and the neighbor asked politely if we could, in the future, restrain our car from acting in such a disruptive manner.

Naturally we reassured him that he could sleep in peace in the future, that the car would be disciplined appropriately and brought under control. Unfortunately we have little hope of actually fulfilling this promise. This is due to the idea of resistentialism, which suggests that inanimate objects, far from being little blobs of inanimateness, can in fact act freely of their own will, and often choose to do so in a manner that is hostile toward humans. This is seen, for instance, in cases where an individual may, during normal waking hours, be perfectly able to find and operate the light switch in a particular room of the house, but when attempting to locate this same light switch in the dark, finds that the switch has mysteriously moved, probably to a location down the street. Why objects often choose to act thus in a hostile, rather than friendly or neutral, manner is still unclear, although refined sugar is suspected.

Joe's car exhibits several signs of resistentialism. One is that it will, periodically and without warning, hold the keys hostage in the ignition, knowing that without the keys we too are in fact held hostage in the car. After several tugs and pulls on our part, it finally tires of this game and spits out the keys, at which point we grab them and run before the car can change its mind and decide, say, to lock the doors and windows with us inside. Permanently.

The other instance of hostile behavior on the part of the car is this business of the alarm going off in the middle of the night, or in the middle of a quiet street in a quaint town we are visiting. This occurs even though we have never, in five years of owning the car, set the alarm. Clearly the car is acting on its own whims, delighting in tormenting us and in causing us to fall out of favor with neighbors and townspeople.

Mechanics are evidently taught that cars are susceptible to resistentialism, and to believe that there is nothing to be done in such a case, because Joe has submitted his car several times to expert scrutiny, and always the verdict comes back that the car was perfecty behaved during the analysis, and therefore nothing is wrong with the car. Or possibly they are taught that a certain percentage of car owners -- including us -- are just crazy, and not to be encouraged.

After the middle-of-the-night incident we were planning a beach getaway, and discussed whether we should take my car -- which has the temperament of Mother Teresa -- and leave his home, free to misbehave if it chose, but there was the real possibility that the if the alarm went off in our absence, we could return home to an angry mob surrounding it with hatchets, and our home in flames. We took his car.

Later we were strolling down the boardwalk at the beach when Joe suddenly cocked his head, and his face turned white. Off in the distance I heard beep, beep, beep, beep, beep...

He grabbed me and turned around, away from the beeping. "Let's walk the other way," he said.

"That can't be your car," I protested. "It's parked too far away."

"It could be five states away and I'd still hear it. That car is capable of anything."

Blessedly the honking ceased, and we started to relax.

Some minutes later Joe stopped again.

"What's that noise?" he said, listening intently.

"Beep, beep, beep," I said. But there was no actual beeping, and my helpful commentary earned me a bop on the shoulder.

We returned home without further incident, no angry beachgoers or store owners throwing us out of town for disturbing the peace.

But, we know, the car waits. It's just a matter of time.