I drive a car so old that if it were a human, it could vote and buy porn.  Driving a car like this makes you realize certain things about yourself.  Like, I never knew that I was religious until I started driving this car and now I pray almost every time I get onto the highway that my car will hit 60 mph by the time I have to merge.  I’ve also found out just how much back sweat I can produce as the car has no air-conditioning.  But my favorite self-realization brought on by my 91 Camry is what a good actress I am.

You see, the car smokes from the hood after about ten minutes of driving.  It’s not actually on fire or anything.  It’s just a little smoke and I’ve learned to ignore it.  But I understand that a smoking car with a person inside would be alarming to most.  And so whenever I’m at a red light and the person next to me rolls down their window and in a panic yells, “Your car is smoking!” I feel like saying, “No big deal.  A little smoke by a gas powered engine never killed anyone…important,” isn’t the right response.  It’s really nice of them to be so worried about a total stranger and I should validate their concern.  So I normally ask them to repeat themselves several times and then act like I’ve finally understood and mouth, “Oh my gosh!  Thank you.”  Then I start dialing something in my cell phone that I hope looks like an emergency call.  The light changes and the person waves and mouths “good luck” as they drive off and I spend the rest of the trip switching lanes to avoid them.

It’s a fun little game…well, fun until my car actually does explode.