I swear I'm not a murderer...

...but I am slowly killing Lucille.

Lucille is the name of our car, by the way.

Now, I contest that Lucille was angry and resentful before I ever came into contact with her, but others seem to disagree.  I mean, I am not a bad driver.  Really.  I swear.  Just...absent-minded?  Occasionally oblivious?  Easily distracted?  Yes.  That last one.

Of course I am watching the road...road sounds like toad...Neville had a toad!  Why was Ron allowed to bring Scabbers?  The letter said "owl, cat, or toad".  I should buy an owl.

 

Take, for instance, the events of a recent road trip.  I was in the driver's seat and my friend was filling up the tank.  When he got back in the car, I figured (completely logically!) that he was done getting gas.  Never mind that it had only been about a minute.  So you can imagine my surprise at his panic when I went to turn the car on.  See, what I saw as continuing on the journey, he saw as my attempt to blow up a gas station and kill us all.  Turns out the car was still filling up.

I would like to remind everyone that this did not actually happen.

 

I would like to point out that I did not, in fact, set anything on fire.  However, this is just one in a series of small mistakes that have convinced the men in my life that I am not to be allowed behind the wheel of a car without serious supervision.  Despite all my protests that I am a perfectly good driver when they are not stressing me out and making me all nervous by WATCHING MY EVERY MOVE, they remain skeptical.  This is probably not helped by the car's obvious resentment of me.

I may have bent back the side mirror of the car by driving too close to the drive-through pick-up window, causing a chain reaction so the driver's-side window refuses to go up or down without forceful assistance.  I may have rear-ended another car when Lucille decided that sliding across the snow would be much more fun than obeying my frantic punching on the brake pedal.  I still say that was the fault of Lucille and her accomplice, unplowed roads.  And the fact that the passenger's side door requires yanking for both opening and closing really has nothing to do with me.  That's just Lucille being spiteful.

She takes after her namesake.

 

Despite all of my accidental abuse (and occasionally life-threatening absentmindedness), she still functions, carrying us many miles with only minor spurts of obstinancy.  So, Lucille, thanks for all you do.  I promise to do my best to take care of you.
Until I finally succeed in destroying you.  By accident, of course.