12/16/08 The Horn Monster Returneth

So I’m driving home from the gym last night, singing along to the radio at the top of my lungs (Sometime Around Midnight by The Airborne Toxic Event, if you want to recreate the scene) when I hear this part of the song that I hadn’t noticed before. It’s this constant sound, half-way hidden under the drums and guitars, and it kind of goes “HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNK”. And because I’m clueless, I think, “Huh. I wonder what instrument makes that sound”.

I’ll give you a hint. It’s a horn.

A CAR horn.

MY car horn.

Again.

“NOOOOO!” I yelled! (Actually, I yelled some other choice words too, but Nooooo! is the only one that I can reprint here). And even though the first time proved that beating the steering wheel is completely ineffective, I beat it anyway. Because there’s not much else you can do to unstick a car horn while driving down the middle of the interstate, and you have to try something.

And just so you know, the level of mortification does not decrease any with familiarity. It was the same, only this time anger and frustration were making their appearances also, because suddenly this wasn’t a freak one-time occurrence anymore. And I didn’t do anything to set it off. I was just driving along, minding my own business, not even touching it! As a matter of fact, ever since it happened the first time, I’ve been driving with only my fingertips touching the every edges of the wheel, careful not to so much as even breathe funny and anger the psycho spastic Horn Monster living inside my steering wheel.

But now I have no choice but to take it to the dealership so that they can force me to drive a rental for three days before calling me up to tell me that they can’t find anything wrong with my horn. And I’ll insist, and they’ll shrug and say something about checking it again while they make it clear that they’re just humoring the crazy lady.

Plus the car is still under warranty, which you think would be a good thing, but really just requires me to fill out a lot of paperwork for them to tell me that I’m imagining the horn, or that the horn is supposed to randomly blow like that, or that the horn blowing is a pre-existing condition caused by normal wear and tear and only covered on vehicles with less the 20,000 miles when the last new moon was in line with Pluto and therefore not covered under my warranty. (If it is the last case, then the horn will suddenly be a huge complicated problem requiring a whole new steering wheel and cost the equivalent of the national debt).

And I will grumble. But I will drive their stinky rental car, and pay their national debt bills, and endure their crazy lady shrugs because the random horn blowing? Not cool. Not the kind of attention that I’m looking for.

Once was a freak thing. Twice? This means war, Horn Monster.