Honda Chick

So, my husband finally replaced his old beat up volkswagen rabbit convertible (otherwise known as a cabriolet that is the same age as my little brother, who is now of legal age to consume alcohol).

It all started on his birthday. On his birthday, he picked up our son from school and stopped at the mail box to get the mail. When he got back in the car, it wouldn’t start. He and my son had to push the car the rest of the way up the street and into the garage. Little did I know at the time that this was the beginning of the end.

The car has died like this on numerous occasions, so many that I became nervous about taking the vehicle out for family trips in the summer (which is kinda the whole point of owning a convertible anyway, isn’t it?). One time, a county sheriff had to push the car out of one of the busiest intersections in town, into a grocery store parking lot, and I had to go pick up my hubby and take him home. Previously, my hubby has taken these things in stride, saying that he’s just not doing a good enough job maintaining the car, or he hasn’t found the right guy to work on it yet. But this last event… was entirely different.

I knew something was wrong when the mechanic had the car for over a week and he said to me, “Well, we can’t sell it if it’s not running.” Sell it? What? Are you kidding me? I’ve been trying to convince you to sell this car –which would make a fantastic hobby car for someone who loves to get his hands greasy, but really isn’t a great car for a guy who makes his living as a computer geek– for four years and now you’re telling me that you’re going to sell it!

At first I was angry.

Then the phone calls from the mechanic started rolling in.

The place where we took it to have a tune up put in the wrong size spark plug and damaged the head. The place that installed the new wiring harness –the local VW dealer of all things– not only overcharged us for the part, they installed the wrong one AND did it incorrectly, this contributed to draining the battery somehow that I wasn’t able to follow. To top it all off, the exhaust manifold was cracked and the part is no longer manufactured by Volkswagen. Even after all of these repairs were made, the car was still running rough and the mechanic loves working on old cars like this… and could not figure out why it sounded so unhappy for the life of him.

That was when my husband started talking about buying a Honda, the day we picked up the VW from the shop. He drove it home and began surfing and showed me pictures of the CR-V that day. I tried to talk him into something else, I suggested Subarus because they last forever and my dad works at the plant, so we get a discount on buying Subarus. He went and looked at Jeeps, and we finally came back to the Honda CR-V. After some finagling and moonshines, we bought the car and picked it up earlier this week.

This is where the story really begins. Along with the car came “Honda Chick.” My husband spends more time with this gal than he does with me, and to be blunt, it’s really starting to piss me off. He looks forward to getting to have quality time with “Honda Chick” every single day. I don’t think we’ve had a conversation that lasted more than ten minutes that took place outside of his car since he brought “Honda Chick” home. And when I call him while he’s driving home, she annoys the crap out of me with her “Left turn one quarter mile” bull crap. As if he doesn’t know how to get home! Come on lady!

She’s absolutely, one hundred percent, a backseat driver. It gets on my nerves and I’m not even driving the car.

If this doesn’t stop, he’s going to have to make a choice.

Me, or Honda Chick.