the sloppy jalopy report

I've been driving my car with the check engine light on for nearly 3wks now (first blinked on & freaked me out back on 1/25). Stupid? For sure...though I'd rather spin it as brash recklessness.

I have noticed a sort of sluggishness in its performance, but this sensation is so subtle, that I wonder if I'm imagining it on account of check-engine-light-induced-paranoia. This sluggishness does seem to occur when my temp gauge is indicating that my car is waay cold. Cars just perform differently in the cold, right? Or it's not unusual for them to anyways...

So I'm driving it under the moronic notion that if the engine was going to undergo a catastrophic failure, it would have done so by now. I've considered cruising into Auto Zone and having them hook it up to the computer & read me a code but I've procrastinated on that because--
1. I'm lazy
2. Dread-- they may tell me (for like, the 3rd time) that it's just a bum O2 sensor which is no major deal...BUT they may also tell me that my car is on the verge of massive, multiple, cataclysmic, nastybad organ failure and about to incur beaucoup repair costs that I can't afford. I'm not tryin' tah hear that, Homes.
3. Just in general-- procrastinating's my favorite. No, it sucks. I know it sucks. But I do it all the time.

So I vacillate between white-knuckled,on-edge driving, expecting the car to shit the proverbial bed at any moment...and half-suspecting that it's just a no-biggie O2 sensor issue again. But everytime I think-- "Yeah...the car's ok" I rebuke myself for the thought. You know how lotsa folks rave about "the power of positive thinking"? Well, I'm a big believer in the negative power of positive thinking. A nutso part of me thinks that such a thought will instantaneously finish my car off. Another example: when driving in bad snow and/or ice, I will sometimes mentally assure myself with a li'l "Doin' good" or something like that, but then I quickly follow it up with: "DON'T be so self-congratulatory!!" To put it concisely- I'm a big believer in the possibility of jinxing myself. Not that I've ever done it... or that I rationally think that it happens... oh, shit, I wasn't all that concise about that, was I??

Believe it or no, there is something to be said for white-knuckled, edgy driving. I have acquired, in the last few weeks, a heightened sense of place. As I drive, I keep mental notes on where I am. Northbound on Rte 120, just passed the cross street of Etna Rd, approaching cross street of Lafayette. This, obviously, is so that when I phone for roadside assistance, I can clearly articulate where to come rescue me.

Also, I'm probably avoiding a lot of aural damage that I would normally be incurring. Usually, I am one to have my music cranked up to the max (to ELEVEN!!) --sometimes rattling my side mirrors, and always loud enough to cover up my singing (that is key) But I've been very uncharacteristically driving with my radio OFF. Y'see I've been straining very hard to try to listen to the under-the-hood innerworkings of my ride....I've even caught myself, when wanting to extra-listen, turning down the volume on the radio that's not on. I fully realize how kinda ridiculous I'm being. I'm not the freakin' "Car Whisperer",after all!! And all I can really hear, while in motion, is the loud thrumming road noise of my winter tires and the rattle of a box of white Tic Tacs I have in my dash cubby. Not terribly informative. But I listen extra hard when idling at a stop light, or letting it idle before I shut it off. And it sounds VERY NORMAL. I'm especially relieved not to hear "THUNKKK!" when I turn it off. I don't know why I'm specifically trepidatious of "THUNKKK!" but yeah, that stole into my head for some odd reason, at some point, and there you have it.

The lack of THUNKKK! & nonominous purr of my idylling engine is , I fear, slooooowly lulling me out of my High Orange Car Terror Alert status. This is bad, because the best thing about white-knuckled ultra-paranoid driving, is that when you DO break down at the side of the road, it's almost a fecking RELIEF. You have sort of a resigned sighing, "Ah well. It's finally done it now, eh?" sort of reaction....as opposed to the "AGH! SHIT! WHAT THE FUCK?" panic that will hit a driver of normal mindset.

In a totally, nonautomotive aside, it occurs to me that my run-on sentence rate was impossibly higher than usual in this post. Please forgive me my rambliness!!