Special Ingredients: Car Trouble

And then she got sick. Sure, she had been sick before, but one day she just wouldn’t go, leaving me stranded away from home. I got her going again and thought I should have this problem looked at later, but she stopped again, and I had to switch mounts to get to work.

I took her in to have her looked at by my friend’s husband. While he was able to fix her up, he warned me her years were about through, as she was falling apart and could kill me if she had an accident. It was time to take my old friend out back and end her life and years of service to me and get another steed, as emotionally devastating as it was to lose such an old friend.

It was time for a new car.

Ever since I’ve started driving, I’ve driven my mother’s old 1994 Crown Victoria, a mini-tank of a car with an odd paint job that changes from green to blue to black depending on lighting conditions, a kind of paint you’re never going to find anywhere these days. My mother purchased the car in the fall of that year to replace her Mercury Grand Marquee, which at that point had a giant rust spot on the side and threatened to explode if you cranked the air conditioning to the max. At least that’s what my mother told me, but she probably just didn’t want me playing with the AC controls.

In the late spring of 2001, I was eighteen, and with college approaching, I decided it probably wasn’t a bad idea to start learning how to drive so I could get to the actual college. I remember the first time I got behind the wheel in the back of my high school and nearly panicked when the car moved without me stepping on the accelerator, something I had no idea was supposed to happen. I mashed the gas with my foot and spun the tires out on the gravel lot, causing my mother to start punching the airbag in hopes it would deploy so she could hide in its safety and not have to see the fatal crash coming.

Learning to drive in a full-sized car is not really a good idea unless you want to either A) clip mailboxes, road signs, joggers, ect because you’re leaning to far over to the right or B) cause motorists on the other side of the road to swerve into mailboxes, road signs, joggers, ect because you’re over compensating for your size and are actually driving in the middle of the road.

I was a B, hugging the inside track in the live-or-die roads of the mid-Michigan farmlands, practicing while we were up at the cottage. The first car I encountered on a perpendicular road, I stopped for and waved him on. He had a stop sign and I didn’t. It was actions like this and the aforementioned B mode that caused a shouting match with my mother which ended in her melodramatically yelling “I can’t take it anymore!” Who says learning to drive is traumatic?

I learned the ropes eventually, and took my test. Or at least I tried to, but I had to go through the BMV, which, for the five people who are of driving age who haven’t experienced it personally, is as evil as stated in the Bible. First, I tried calling the Toledo location to make an appointment for the test, but the line was always busy, probably because they had served three customers that day and decided that was enough, so they took the phone off the hook and waited out the clock by playing Solitaire on the computer. I had to call the Bowling Green location, which was apparently staffed by people whose coffee was laced with soma, because they were pleasant, to make an appointment for the Toledo location.

So I showed up for my driving test, a little worried because I had doubts the Bowling Green BMV could get through to the Toledo BMV and just gave up like I did. Fortunately, I was in the system, which was good, because I borrowed a friends Dodge Neon to take the test (I was smart enough not to take my hulking Crown Vic and risk knocking over all four maneuverability cones at the same time) and dragged my dad along to act as my licensed driver, though I question sometimes which one of us should really have been forced to take the test.

Everything seemed to be a go, until an extremely irritating BMV clerk who looked almost exactly like Michael McDonald from MAD TV and appeared to have a stick wedged in his ass, but it may have been a sapling that he was aware would grow even bigger, pointed out I was missing one blue piece of paper that was basically identical to another red piece of paper I did have, and refused to let me take the test in a way that was definitely personal. I was later told by two female friends that they were allowed to take the test with just the red paper, making me feel a sexual discrimination lawsuit coming on.

I had to go through the gamut again to make another appointment, making sure this time to have all of my paperwork, and, in a boneheaded oversight that surely cost someone their job, I was allowed to take the test. I barely passed on account of frequent swerving, something I attribute to a combination of driving a smaller car than I was used to and BMV test jitters. I was issued a license, though my dad expressed concern over my barely passing, even though he has little room to talk.

After assuring him I wouldn’t cause a fatal accident as I neglected to do the last one and a half trips I made out to south Toledo, a place, I should mention, seems to be where all of the most aggressive drivers in northwest Ohio hang out based on honks per minute (HPM), we were off to a local hotdog place to celebrate. While we were eating, I ended up seeing the McDonald clone stiffly having lunch, and I entertained the idea of marching up to him and shoving my newly-minted license in his face, but I thought better of it and went on my way.

It was at this point the legend started. I would roar around town with my Crown Vic, which I later tried to unsuccessfully name Bonaparte, inspired by the New Dominion Tank Police anime. I plastered it with various anime decals I picked up from conventions which lasted a year before being to look like someone had tossed them into the sun’s core. Besides that and maybe a few minor dings, the car looked like the luxury car it was supposed to be.

The Crown Vic provided not only transportation, but a number of experiences, most of which are too rudimentary for me to recall, but I assure you they were emotionally significant. As I mentioned earlier, my fiancée and I did mess around in there on a number of occasions, but eventually gave it up because, let’s face it, it’s really difficult to get your mojo on if you have to cram your legs into the little space provided while trying to lie down while your partner leans over and… you know what? My mother is probably reading this right now, so let’s move on.

I will admit to anyone who is unfortunate enough to listen that this car was very reliable, as it only refused to start around the end when the starter gave out. This is surprising, since I really didn’t take that great of care of it. Sure, I remembered all of my oil changes, especially over the last few years, when I would go in early because the car would burn oil and fire lung-crushing clouds of smoke out the back whenever I started up, probably giving a number of those unfortunate enough to be driving behind me at least three different cancers. It was so bad at some points that car would last maybe two weeks before the oil would burn out and I would hear the telltale rattle informing me I was rubbing parts together.

I also never took my car to the carwash. While this might not seem like that big of a deal, I was told by my friend’s husband, Lee, who served as my mechanic for a while, that I should routinely get an underbody wash, especially in the winter to remove rust-inducing salt. He told me this when the frame was already ninety-six percent rust, and was probably only holding together because of magnetism. Of course, my mother, being as critically helpful as she is, informed me she knew this all along and scoffed at me for not knowing too, even though she never mentioned it ever. Then again, she hardly told me anything about car care, and the only reason I knew how to pump gas was by secretly watching her do it, thereby foiling her future scoffing plans.

I also let junk pile up in the car, the kind of stuff that was one step from Goodwill or the dump, but would never remove because I thought I might use it someday, because you never know when you’ll need a novelty stress balloon. I would also store the things bound for used entertainment stores for trade-in, mostly kept in a milk crate, though these items would spread around the car as I took them in to trade only to be refused, at which point I would toss them someplace and drive off into the sunset, which would be heavily obscured by my oil cloud.

As the various problems (little things like the fuel line leaking, posing a fire and explosion hazard) started to mount up and require a few hundred dollars here and there, I started to despise driving the car. It irritated me to think to think this thing could break down at any time and leave me stranded somewhere, not just because of the stranding, but because I knew I loved the car for its nostalgic value, and in the back of my mind, I knew it one day would.

It was a Friday morning when the car finally failed on me. I was off to work, but first decided to stop at the bank. After I was done, I hopped in my car and turned the key… and nothing happened. I tried several times with no luck, and I worried the battery had gone. The odd thing was, the clock and CD player came on, and I know enough about cars to know it couldn’t have been the battery.

Fortunately, there was a Bell Tire across the street from the bank, so I wandered over their and waited for someone to help me. Eventually, a technician walked over and tried to start it, and wouldn’t you know, it started right up. I figured it was some kind of fluke that I should have looked at later, so I thanked the guy and was on my way.

It was then that I decided, since I was already late, I might as well stop at a garage sale (why not?). I walked in and out in about a minute, because it was terrible, went to my car, turned the key… and it started right up.

Of course it didn’t start up, you moron! What fun would that be? It refused to start at all, resulting in a stream of curses, poundings, and my fury forcing me to somehow bend both the key and the ignition in such a way that it was really difficult to turn anymore. I called my mother and asked her to call AAA and come out to get me. This wonderful organization will come get you no matter where you’re stranded in a prompt fashion, provided your definition of “prompt” involves a timeframe which involves camping supplies.

My mother showed up and we waited around for a while, and after maybe five minutes, I decided I had to get to work and stranded her there with the broken down car. Who says I don’t love my mother?

She later told me what happened in a way that suggested she had barely survived fending off a pack of wild boar that had attempted to ascend upon her. Apparently, AAA couldn’t figure out what was wrong, so they towed the car back to her house and went on their way. I called Lee and let him know I had a job for him, which he enthusiastically jumped on about a week later.

Not having a car is something I never had to deal with since I started college. I would have been fine without one if it weren’t for the minor obligation of work, forcing me to borrow my disgruntled mother’s car for a couple of days, something she was quick to remind me was a huge inconvenience for her despite the fact she had the summer off and never really went anywhere important. If I was in her shoes, I probably wouldn’t get behind the wheel until August.

When I finally got the car back, Lee delivered some grim news with it. The frame underneath had rotted out, leaving two rusted holes behind. This translated into a weaker structure, meaning if I ever got into an accident, the entire thing would crumple me along with it like a bug in a pop can. The only practical solution: a new car.

This was a bit of a bittersweet moment. I had actually been pining for a new car the December before, when Christy was looking for one and I got to see what was out there. Yet I didn’t want to abandon my Crown Vic, so I secretly spent the next few months waiting for that one problem that would cost too much to fix, and suddenly it showed up.

I decided right away I was going to get another Ford, since having a car for fourteen years with few big problems is not a bad deal in my book. I immediately contacted someone I knew from work whose husband worked at Ford and could provide me with the necessary gateway to get a cheaper car through their X-Plan.

The AXZ-Plan is a system wherein people either work for, have worked for, are related, or know someone who works for Ford. The A- and Z-plans are reserved for family members and employers, and are superior to the X-Plan, which I qualified for. I felt pretty special until I realized it actually isn’t that big of a deal, because the sales people could use their access to sell you a car for a lower price.

So why pay full price for a car when the sales people can use their X-Plan access for you? There’s really no point, since they’ll do it if you ask to ensure a sale. So what’s the purpose of even having a special plan if anyone can feasibly use it? I was told because of this plan, they can’t negotiate the prices on new cars anymore. Yeah, I know, I’ll bet, but I have reasons to believe this, which I’ll explain in a minute.

After getting my login information, I checked out the cars and prices to see what my options were. When I test drove cars with Christy, I ended up driving a Focus, Ford’s cheapest, smallest model. Having grown up in luxury cars with massive amounts of room, it’s easy to imagine why I would shrug this car off. Because I’m a garage saler by trade, I tend to haul any variety of goods around, and the idea of finding a ¼ scale Zodd figure for two bucks and not being about to take it with me was a horror that could keep me up at night.

This is not to mention that a cheap car is a cheap car, and this would have been true if I looked into the Focus in previous years. For the 2008 models, Ford redesigned it to look like a car you’d actually want, with a stylish interface and a bunch of sleek options. Who cares if it has basically the same carrying capacity as a Radio Shack remote controlled car? It’s sexy!

The upside of the Focus is the gas mileage is by far the best, working an average of thirty-two miles on the highway. Considering the direction Bush and the gang are driving this country’s gas prices in their Dodge Sub-Continent, fuel-efficiency is a serious consideration for new car buyers like me. When I first got my Crown Vic, no one cared about fuel efficiency because back in those days (2001, and don’t try and tell me that doesn’t seem like an entirely different world), you could drive your Chevy Glacier to work and back for less than it would cost to buy your lunch, assuming you’re eating a six pack of store-by ramen and drinking a single can of store-brand cola. Now, you might as well hitch yourself up to your car and drag it to work and just pay for the knee surgery, because it’s simply a less expensive alternative.

The other two cars I was a looking at were the Ford Fusion and the Ford Edge. The Fusion is a mid-sized car that would balance fuel efficiency and space. The problem is, the car looks like its interior was designed at about the same time as my old one. It’s so hideously out of date compared to the other models, I’m surprised time-travelers from 632 A.F. didn’t swing by and worship it.

The Edge was the car I really wanted, an SUV/minivan crossover which looked great and had enough room to cram any random junk I happened to find. The gas mileage wasn’t bad, about twenty-four MPG for the highway, but I could have squeezed an extra one-way commute to work from the Focus out of every gallon of gas. Plus, the price was more than ten-grand higher than the Focus, though the X-Plan benefits were greater.

My feeble justifications for owning the Edge was two-fold. I was moving at the time (check out this article for my exploits in homeownership) and didn’t want to mooch off of my cousin, who was letting me use his SUV to haul my stuff. The problem with this excuse is once I was done moving, I wouldn’t need the space anymore, and my occasional purchase of a door slab or acquisition of a neat-looking couch from the side of the street could hardly make up for the extra gas I was burning.

I knew the moving excuse wouldn’t be enough, so I pointed out (to myself and anyone who would listen to me rationalize the purchase of a car I didn’t need) Christy was driving a compact car, so it would be a good idea to balance things out and have a larger one available. For what, I wasn’t sure, but that’s not the point. WE MIGHT NEED IT!

So I took all of these misguided ideas with me to the local Ford dealer, Matthews Ford, where I ended up dealing with a flaky yet friendly man named Dale. The thing that struck me about Dale was he technically wasn’t a very good salesman. There was a lot he didn’t know about the cars, though thankfully he didn’t just make stuff up like I’ve heard car dealers have been known to do. He didn’t try to steer me away from the car I wanted to a more expensive model I didn’t need. In fact, he influenced me to take the cheaper model that was selling out on its own. He sort of just existed to answer what questions he could and sap off of Ford’s payroll.

This was a relief, because I was prepared to deal with a loud, phony, pushy, obnoxious waste of human genes, and this was just the secretary who would page something worse. I fortified myself with knowledge gathered from Edmunds, a useful car buyer’s tool, which warned me of unethical salesmen and evil management. I was prepared for a battle, and all I got was a non-intimidating smile and handshake. I guess you could say it was a good experience.

It was at this point that I put Dale through a gauntlet of test drives of all three cars, plus the Ford Escape, which is basically the Hot Wheel version of an SUV, but isn’t too bad. Yet I wasn’t willing to drive around in an SUV, which very visage looks like I’m giving the finger to the energy crisis in America despite its performance. I entered Test Driver’s Cognitive Dissonance mode, where I tried to convince myself that the Ford Edge had my best interests in mind while the Focus and the Fusion were evil incubations of the Devil trying to sway me into the life of corruption with their “sensible size, price, and fuel economy.”

I soon discovered my original perceptions were off. The Focus, because of its size, provided nice handling, but was roomier than one would think. This doesn’t apply victims who have to sit in the back seat, which is akin to stuffing them under the kitchen sink cabinet. When I hit a bump in the road, it was like it wasn’t there. The car, I mean. Despite its faults, it was actually a comfortable car to drive, and that sexy interface could not be forgotten. If I forgot it, my attention would have been focused (hah!) on the cheap plastic material the rest of the material was made of, solidifying the car’s “toy” classification.

The Fusion really surprised me, because it had nice handling, a smooth ride, and was really comfortable. The particular model I was testing had some light ambient lighting built in, which looked neat, but was hardly worth the justification of a more expensive purchase. It also didn’t do much to overshadow the rest of the ugliness inside.

The Escape was also a surprise. The handling was nice and the ride smooth. The price was good, and the fuel economy was no slouch either. Yet I couldn’t get past the SUV image, something that bothered me enough to take a pass on it. To me, it represented not only being on the wrong side of the previously mentioned political snafu, it also looked to much like a grown-up car, and would haunt me with its implications that I was a grown-up and I had to do grown-up things now, like play golf and cheat on my wife. I shunned the Escape for this reason, which is ironic, considering where my final decision landed.

The Edge, to my disappointment, was the weakest of the three. Sure, it looked cool and had foldout room in the back for all kinds of young and wild sexcapades… er, sorry Mom! I meant to say church meetings! Sadly, while the handling wasn’t bad, it felt like more of a tank than the Crown Vic, and I wasn’t used to having my view blocked by a frame that was located so far back, making each lane change a test in faith of God. Plus, though twenty-four miles per gallon isn’t bad, it’s not as good as the alternatives, and the cost of the car was a little more prohibitive, to say the least.

While I was stewing over my options, I was also calling around to other dealers in the area to see what they could do as far as beating the price Mathews was offering me. I dealt with two other dealers, one in neighboring Genoa and the other tucked away in Toledo called Brondes. The guy at Genoa seemed to recognize my name from my mother’s church, yet this didn’t motivate him enough to dig up a good deal for me.

The first person I talked to at Brondes had a rather condescending and rude attitude about me wanting to get a better deal, acting like I was insisting he perform some kind of price alchemy. Fortunately, another woman who started contacting me proved to be much nicer and offered to “do anything” to get my business. Being a happily engaged man, I didn’t test her “do anything” limits, even if she sounded “ooo, not a’ bad looking.”

Seriously, she was really nice and professional, the kind of person that made me feel bad for not buying a second car off of her.

Evidence that the X-plan was a restricting factor in the car negotiating game was the fact no one would even consider a lower price for a new car. They were more than happy to match the offer Mathews had agreed upon (not that they had a choice, or they would lose their dealership license), but I reasoned there was absolutely no sense in me journeying to a farther dealership to get the exact same price. They had nothing to offer me that Mathews couldn’t, with the possible exception of Brondes, with the “ooo, not a’ bad looking.”

During this time, the clock was ticking, because it was almost the end of June, and that’s when all of the valuable incentives would evaporate into car dealership Hell. Incentives are those nice-sounding offers they flash on all the car commercials and give potential buyers (you guessed it!) incentive to sink five figures into a car. These usually include cash back, low (or no) interest financing, or both. Incentives are a great way to make the customer think they’re getting a real steal (hell, they’re just giving you free money!) or instill a sense of panic. I fell for number two.

Granted, there could have been incentives that were just the same or better then next month, but at that point, I figured I was probably not going to get a much better deal any time soon, and I wanted to get the car situation taken care of. I marched over to Mathews, summoned Dale, and sold my childhood for a Ford Focus.

It was a bit of a teeth-gritting experience, but I decided on the cheaper, more fuel efficient car, effectively giving the finger to another fleeting shred of immaturity. I could have afforded the Edge. It would have taken longer to pay off and would be more expensive, but I could have went with it. In one of the few major grown up decisions of my life, however, I decided wasting all that gas and money just to make a statement seemed frivolous in light of this country’s oil crisis. I went with the less fun car because I wanted to be a good citizen and a sensible adult. For just this once.

And then I ordered the complete package. I figured if I was buying a dollar store car, I might as well pick up a few more things to staple on the side and make me think I was driving a sexy car. Dale directed me to a black Focus that had just come in and had two miles on it. About the only way I could have gotten a newer one is if I hijacked it the moment it came off of the assembly line. In addition to being my color (well, I would have preferred the mutation that was the old Crown Vic, but that was just a nineties thing), it had a rear spoiler, because those are just so useful, a “moon roof,” because why not, and most importantly, even over the engine, the full Microsoft SYNC system.

After the car was picked out, it was time to hand over the dough. I was forced to run the gauntlet of paperwork at this point to get the title and financing for the car (i.e.: sign over my first born should I fail to make a single payment on time). Honestly, this process didn’t bother me despite how much people complain about the amount of paperwork, as if it’ll take an entire star cycle to finish. In my experience, it only took until the Red Giant phase.

Because the car just came in, I had to wait until the next day to pick it up so they could inspect it, not a wait I wanted to endure for something I paid nearly twenty grand for. The next day, I swung buy and picked up my new car, and it was off into a new chapter in my life.

I’ve been driving it for almost four months now, and it most certainly is a car. Its great not having to worry about whether or not the car would explode when I turned the key. I’ve already run into some issues with the lack of space the Focus offers. Imagine the joys of trying to grab a TV from the curb in one ninja-like motion, only to find yourself twisting the damn thing into your backseat like a rube. Scratch that; a rube would have a pickup with boards nailed to the side.

On that note, when I said the interior of the car looked like junk, it seems I was mistaken. It turns out it is junk, since I managed to scrape the inside of the door while hauling in the hypothetical TV. The interior door panels seem to scratch at a feather’s touch, so I imagine the entire thing will look like a flock of geese molted inside by next summer. Seriously, Ford dropped the ball on this one, and it rolled over my foot and broke three toes.

I have to give props to the exterior’s ability to hold up against damage, since I tested it less than two months into my ownership of the car. Since I started driving, I’ve never gotten into an accident, at least not one that left behind any evidence. My insurance company loved me, because they were getting free money which they used to pay out the claims for the idiots who fall under any of the typical idiot driver categories, paying the most to the ones that accomplish the heady task of falling into all of them.

So it figures neatly into the equation that I would not only damage my new car, but also my boss’s car. I had him over to do some work on my house and I found out we needed some supplies. I backed out of the garage, and I was maybe five feet out when I heard a rubbing noise. I turned around and realize my car was getting a little too fresh with his.

I surveyed the damage, and in a self-loathing panic, concluded it wasn’t that bad and went about my business. When I returned, my boss, genuinely confused, asked me if I hit his car. After examining the damage more closely, I discovered I had put a one and a half foot scrape down the side of his driver’s side door. Fortunately, he was cool about it, and actually felt worse for me because I had damaged my own car. I felt terrible about damaging his, and received my lumps with some verbal harassment come Monday and running the gauntlet with my insurance company, which wanted to just be friends after I filed the claim.

Outside of a few scratches, my car was intact, so at least Ford didn’t skimp on the exterior too badly.

So what about the extras I spent money that could have gone towards stupid things, like my house taxes? Some are better than others. It doesn’t take my mind off the fact I bought the cheapest car Ford had, but at least it dulls the pain, like any good stiff drink should.

First, a discussion about the boxed wine of the features: the moon roof.

I love this term “moon roof.” I understand it’s been around since the seventies, thanks to an innovational marketing strategy concocted by Ford. However, the first time I’ve ever heard the term used was in the first round of 2008 Ford commercials, reminding me the sun and its cancer-causing rays continue to get a bad rap. I’m not sure why our so-called “government” doesn’t just do something about this sun, because it had caused more death than coffee-related drowning and mouse trackball malfunctions COMBINED.

Why did I get a sun roof? I reasoned sun roofs have a sort of romantic, free-spirited feel about them, and when I find myself alone with my special lady, with things about to reach “the next level,” I can suavely slide open the roof, exposing the two of us to the subtle rays of the moon and provide me a way to escape when Christy catches the two of us and goes Michael Meyers on her.

I’m kidding, of course. The real reason I ended up with the sun roof is it came with it.

Not that I haven’t used it to catch some extra air or toss things into the car while practicing my jump shot. I figure the thing will come in useful if I come to the point where I decided to drive myself into a river to end it all. If I change my mind, I can swim out through the opening. If I decide to stay where I’m at, at least the water will get in faster and authorities can just flip it over to drain it out so they can sell it at a police auction. It’s practical and courteous to think ahead.

Have I used the sun roof for anything? Not really. I like to drive with my windows down whenever possible, even if this causes the steering wheel to freeze up from all the snow and ice that flies through. An open sun roof creates a breeze akin to a hurricane being trapped in the car, the perfect conditions to have going on when you’re driving down the highway.

In an effort to make the Focus more fun and suspend the driver’s disbelief away from the fact they bought a life-sized toy car, Ford redesigned the interface that extends to the steering wheel for safety, and they partnered with Microsoft to design SYNC, and all-inclusive voice-activated multimedia system that allows the driver to play CDs, MP3s, and connect their cell phone with the car, turning into a giant headset and allowing anime nerds to reenact scenes from Ceres – Celestial Legend. At least that’s why I wanted it.

The voice control, one of the selling points, works better than you would think, but it isn’t perfect my any means. First, you have to memorize a list of commands, so tell it to “holler at Aunt Sue to find out what kind o’ vittles she’s a fixin’,” you probably won’t find much success. You also have to annunciate, something I’ve discovered long ago is a great thing to cut from your daily life in order to save effort. You also have to hope SYNC figures out how to link the verbal vomit of names you’ll spew at it and turn it into something that results in the correct number.

Some of the arguments I have with SYNC would be pretty hilarious to lookers on. Even I chuckle at my own situation, except for the times I accidentally dial places I didn’t mean too. I’m surprised I haven’t been banned from Vito’s Pizza by now, which seems to be the target of SYNC’s merciless wrath if it doesn’t understand me. Yet when it works, which it does most of the time, it frees my hands to operate my car in a safe, acceptable manner. But more likely, it allows me to easily eat or make wild gestures while I cruise along, looking like I’m carrying on a very heated debate with the invisible man sitting next to me. At least no one will hear me, because I have to keep the window closed, or it sounds like I’m making my call while conducting an experiment in a wind tunnel.

The only hang up I had with the audio setup is the mandatory inclusion of Sirius Satellite Radio, which I was required to pay for despite the fact I didn’t want it. I find radio is a fairly useless entertainment tool because most stations play the same pop products over and over again, lest they run the risk of losing listenership for playing something that hasn’t appeared on Billboard 100.

My taste in music runs towards the obscure and nerdy (think Japanese hair bands, eight-bit remixes, and anime themes), so mainstream radio is of little use to me. Plus, I prefer to choose what I listen too anyway, so radio holds less appeal to me than television, which manages to squeeze out a few Family Guy episodes every once in a while.

Yet I was intrigued by the idea of satellite radio and its possibilities. Sideshows like Howards Stern decided to hop over the FCC’s regulations and onto satellite broadcast, maybe there was something for people with more eccentric tastes. I figured with more than one hundred stations to choose from, there had to be something that would change my mind and maybe, just maybe, justify paying a monthly fee for something that normally doesn’t cost anything.

No such luck. Like cable TV, satellite radio offers over one hundred channels, but you might be hard-pressed to find anything you actually want to listen to. Most of the stations run on what appears to be a pre-recorded playlist, giving me the impression the station is set up in an old wooden shack in some Nevada desert and is only occasionally visited by technician so he can switch around the playlist a little and whack the scorpions out of the computer, explaining why the signal drops out randomly. Considering the “studio” is probably powered by a roadside construction sign solar panel, they had to lower the sound quality a tad, making radio broadcasts sound like YouTube videos that were recorded on a tape recorder, played back in front of the computer’s microphone, and converted into MP3 using poorly programmed software.

I must admit I do listen to some Sirius stations as I drive to and from work, enjoying my compressed audio streams that are only jarred on those occasions when I tune in during scorpion maintenance. I listen primarily to two stations: Blue Collar Comedy and Hair Nation, something I am wiling to admit to an audience of people whom I will never meet.

Blue Collar Comedy, part of the brand started by Jeff Foxworthy, is what I usually tune into, despite the fact I’m a ways on the other side of the cultural slider in relation to the rednecks the station is designed to appeal to. While there are other comedy stations available, Blue Collar is the only one that seems to do actual comedy, with pre-selected snippets of comedians’ albums which quality ranges from brilliant to forcing you to want to see their show while packing a bag full of tomatoes with glass shards tucked in them.

The thing I hate about this station is they never tell you who is performing, and it sounds like the technician randomly selects one track off their CD to the playlist before returning to scorpion duty. What you end up with are bits that can last thirty-seconds before it’s time for a commercial, which ends up being longer. On the plus side, I’m at least given the impression that most of the acts are funny, since just about every time I tune it, it’s always during a period of laughter that sounds eerily the same. I assure you if they ever played material from Branson’s Joe Riley, this creepy laughter would not be an issue.

A lot of you are probably wondering why I don’t listen to Howard Stern, who abandoned the mainstream (well, as mainstream as he could be) for the untested satellite radio waters. I don’t really get Howard’s brand of entertainment, which seems to be nothing more than drunken frat party hosted by a fifty-four-year-old undergrad. I read most of his second book, Miss America, before moving on to other thing, and observed him spending most of the book boasting about how he revolutionized broadcast radio. I’m just not getting it, but he’s the highest paid radio personality in country, so a couple of people like him.

Hair Nation, a station dedicated to eighties hair metal, provides some of the best music I’ve encountered on the Sirius network, and I don’t listen to it all that much.

For those times when I have my senses and listen to my own music, SYNC offers a nice array of options. The CD player supports MP3 CDs, something I thought was the best feature ever created back in 2003, and I’m still on that boat despite how annoying it is to have to burn the things, even though conventional Red Books are exponentially more annoying.

I still don’t know why audio equipment manufacturers have since stripped this function from everything. Instead, the replaced it with auxiliary inputs so you can use your MP3 player. My thought is, if I wanted to use another music player to play music, I would have saved a few buck and just bought a pair of speakers, but I guess it’s handy to have that other stuff on hand. Or you can get one of those players with the idiotic iPod docking ports built in, something that wouldn’t do a thing for me because I looked elsewhere for my portable music needs

I spent years (well, the days weren’t consecutive) looking for an alarm that played MP3 CDs, and. I ended up buying a mini stereo (on clearance, no less) that supported alarm and MP3 functions, which works great, save for the fact it constantly glows as if it was on a trip to Chernobyl and, according to the instructions, isn’t supposed to technically be plugged in all the time. I’m not making that up.

So I’m glad this stereo supports MP3 CDs for those times I decide to go retro and not use my MP3 player using the auxiliary jack instead (ouch! Irony!). I started using my player after I got my last CD player in my Crown Vic, because I couldn’t be bothered to burn MP3s to CD anymore. The problem here is battery consumption, which wouldn’t have been so bad because of the rechargeable battery, but it seems that battery is also powering the car, as evidenced by how fast it drains.

Fortunately, SYNC has an answer to this in the form of a USB port that can be used to charge and access certain players. Even better is the fact it supports flash drives, meaning I can turn any inexpensive flash drive into an MP3 player without the hassle of recharging it or messing with the controls on the player. The problem here is I’m at the mercy of SYNC’s organization software, which is about as bad as any MP3 player I’ve run into, but gives you an option of exploring the drive, which is something I prefer.

The thing I hate about the MP3 players I’ve come across is they insist on organizing music based on the ID3 tags (you know, the thing that tells you who the artist is, what album it’s from, ect). This really throws a wrench into my smooth music listening machine, because the tags on the music are always a mess because I download it from all kinds of… I mean, I get hopped up on some potent narcotics and label my music all wrong.

The way I prefer to organize my music is by folder, which I think makes a lot more sense, but apparently most MP3 player manufacturers don’t buy into my brand of sanity. They can’t really get away with this for CDs on account of the slow access rate, because files with similar ID tags could be located on different parts of the CD and… you know, if you didn’t come in here knowing this, there’s no reason for me to teach you. Anyway, I don’t know why they don’t carry this courtesy over to more disk or flash based models, but I’m glad to see SYNC incorporates it, even though the option is buried and makes song selection a bit of an attention-consuming process. It kind of runs at odds with the whole safe driving campaign Ford was going for.

On a final note, I am getting the mileage, which is the entire justification for driving around in a Ford Focus.

Am I satisfied with my purchase now that the new car luster has worn off? There are times when I regret going with the Focus, like when I have to actually squeeze a computer on the floor or when I add a new scratch to the moronically-designed interior. Then I look at my estimated miles per gallon, my bank account, or, most inspiring, the stereo setup, and everything is reset to a happy yet reserved state.

Would I recommend the Focus to you? If your lone hauling requirement is a box of CDs and a computer, go for it. If you plan on carting around more than one other person on a consistent basis, don’t torture the loser who has to sit in back, unless you hate him, which brings about a whole new set of questions. If you have a family, it’s great, provided you have one kid whose feet don’t touch the floor yet. After that point, set the Focus aside and get a roomier car. Hand the Focus off to your kid when he’s ready to drive, because he’ll wreck it before it breaks down.

So that’s my new car. I expect to be driving this car for another fourteen years before my selective neglect causes it to become a deathtrap, so I had better get used to it. Of course before that happens, I’ll probably gnarl the interior to a fine deadly sharpness which will result in fatal lacerations upon brushing against it, so that point is rendered moot.