We spent three hundred-something-odd dollars on Jen’s Saturn this weekend, fixing a problem with the ignition lock, (ridiculous, really, on a car with 60,000 miles) replacing the two rear tires (we needed to do that last year) and figuring out why the sunroof was leaking (a pox on the Saturn engineers, who did not design the drain tubes to clear themselves. This led to inches of water inside the car and an unpleasant smell.) She called me this afternoon from work to tell me the car wouldn’t turn over. I drove down, got lost, picked her up, got the jumper cables from the Scout, drove back to the Saturn and got it running. This makes twice in a week’s time the Taurus has served as chase-vehicle (I left the lights on in the Scout at the movies the other night- duh) which is sort of humorous, considering that the other two vehicles actually have working turn signals, decent tires, don’t stall at idle, or steer like barges on the Mississippi. When you have to depend on the Taurus to get you out of a jam, it’s time to make friends with Larry the salesguy down at CarMax.

Meanwhile, the exhaust pipe from the headers to the muffler on the driver’s side of the Scout split the other day, right in front of the muffler, so now with one of two mufflers inoperative, you can hear the Scout coming in other zip codes. I have to drive into the local Mineke down the street and see if there’s any way they can re-attach the pipe without having to custom fabricate a whole new exhaust. Fun!

Update 3:45 PM. Saturn claims it’s going to cost somewhere around the GDP of Romania to fix the alternator and replace the battery in Jen’s car. I think not. One call to our friendly auto guy and we have an appointment with a wrench planned for tomorrow night. Grrr. Stupid dumb cars.

Remember, when you’re having a bad day, sushi and Sapporo make everything much better. Or pizza and Corona.

OK, having seen it twice in three minutes (yeah, that’s local TV, thanks so much) I have to be the one to ask this question: How could two of the most image-conscious, brand-aware companies I know of allow such a sucktastic song to go along with their marketing campaign? (And don’t write me to tell me you like it. It sucks. Period.)

Update update 10:18 PM. Not another word about cars. Not again.