OK, there’s no car of doom. At least, there isn’t a red one parked on the street in front of my house. But, as is my style, I try to make things as lively as possible. And that’s why I spent the entire morning at a Honda dealership in the North Hills.

See, the window in the driver’s side door of my beloved Civic hatchback has been a bit sticky for the last few months (Note: that’s MONTHS I had to do something about this). Technically, the window has been off-track, which means, technically, that it’s been fucked. It’s a struggle to roll up and down, and it never really did close all the way.

This has been a problem before. Two Christmases ago, I was headed to my folks’ house after covering a night meeting for the paper. The Wife was already there, oh she of an extra week of vacation. As I often do when lacking adult supervision, I opted to stop at the White Castle in Akron to pick up my dinner and stink up the car. The very same window had been a little sticky at that point, but it hadn’t really been a problem, other than requiring enough force to work that my left forearm was starting to resemble Popeye’s (if only I had an anchor tattoo…). So I got my bag of steamy, oniony goodness and rolled away from the drive-through window. I tried to put up the car window and heard a POP, and saw that the window was all whopperjawed (how’s that for a word?), with no chance of being raised more than halfway. And I still had two hours of freeway driving before I got to Columbus.

Precipitation? Not a problem that night. Temperature? Well …. that nice guy on the radio told me it was 10. And if you’re familiar with the formula that determines wind chill factor, you’ll know that a 10-degree temperature, combined with the 70 MPH wind that would be rushing through my half-open window, comes out to be … let’s see … REALLY FUCKING COLD.

I ate the bugers as quickly as I could, and then stopped again to prep for the rest of the trip. Coat zipped up all the way and I tightened the hood as close to my face as I could. Heat is cranked. Gloves are on. Here we go.

I stopped again one more time to buy a hat (a pretty nifty knit Ohio State cap) at a gas station. Made it home with my ears and digits intact, and we took it to the local Honda dealer the next morning to get it fixed up.

Except the dealer (That’s Immke Honda, by the way … fuckers) apparently slapped a Band-Aid on the thing, because it was never really right again, always a little tight with a snag about halfway up. And back, say, in November, the window became a problem again.

I didn’t fix it then — had the holidays to pay for, etc. Didn’t fix it in January, as I re-discovered skiing and the associated expenses. I didn’t fix it in February, because I’m a dumb, lazy-ass moron.

And so it broke. And so I got up at 7 a.m. on a day that I don’t have to be at work until NINE HOURS LATER and drove to the Honda guy in hopes that they could squeeze me in. They did. Got the window up and ordered parts to fix the damn thing, once and for all. Good.

Only now, I can’t put that window up or down until it gets the pieces-parts, which makes smoking in the car difficult. In the daytime, when I can see the little bottle I’ve been ashing in, it’s not too bad. At night? We’ll see. I may be writing my next post about the smoldering Honda on the side of Route 68…