We’d agreed, I remember, to do my transmission work later in the summer, maybe towards the end. We decided a lot of things that night so there’s certainly room to argue that there was too much going on, that my memory is perhaps clouded. But I so very specifically recall the logic employed to arrive at the decision: we were too fucking broke. So we agreed, shook hands, decided by vote, that we needed to give my checkbook time to recover from all of the sufferings it has recently endured before we should, before we could, take on the expense of a transmission repair. And it was unanimous, all parties present agreed…that is, my checkbook and I, we agreed that was the course of action to follow.

Absent from said meeting, however, was my transmission. Perhaps you think that was a notable omission from the democratic process we employed that evening, but at the time, it seemed vitally important to make sure that the one with the power of veto was left unaware of our decision. However, she has since found out about this decision, I suspect, and I certainly wish someone had warned me what a petulant little bitch I have for a transmission.

My friend Chris tried to warn me, I think. A few months ago, serving in his capacity as my life coach in all things relating to men and mechanics (two subjects about which I proudly confess an almost total ignorance), he crafted a dating questionnaire I was to submit to all prospective suitors. I do remember a question somewhere around the middle of the page, perhaps between “Was your most recent incarceration related to significant mental health issues?” and “Of the teeth in your mouth at this time, how many are natural? Made by a dental professional? Made by friends, relatives, or yourself? (It is acceptable to remove them to count, if needed.)” The question of concern read “Can you repair transmissions?”

I laughed when I read it, thinking it was his intention to be funny. But now, I look back and think Chris was on to something. And when I called him Friday night to discuss my auto woes, he didn’t hum and say in that singsong cadence, “I told you so.” Not that he’s above that sort of thing, mind you, because he’s certainly not. Instead, it was Friday night, he was tired, and it seemed to be his goal to get the hell off the phone as quickly as possible. And thus he ended the conversation rather abruptly with “You’ve been on borrowed time with that thing for months.”

So I’ve spent this weekend doing what I’ve done so many times before: reading about the transmission, the one lurking beneath the hood of my Mazda, reading about the transmission with a long and storied, likely bordering upon notorious, history. I’ve read about the single moms left stranded on the side of the road after dark, of families broken down on the interstate in distant and strange lands, and, the most horrific of them all, the one that made me gasp and realize just how serious this matter is, of the family who’d gone into town to buy a summer’s worth of ice cream only to watch it melt while waiting for a tow truck. You know, when a transmission leads to melted ice cream, it gets my attention.

That said, I’ve been lucky with this one. Those other poor bastards, their trannies blindsided them at 70,000 miles, 52,000 miles, 18,000 miles. I’ve gone a lot farther in my car, on this transmission. And to date, she hasn’t completely failed me.

Yet.

I (still) plan on that happening--towards the end of this summer. We have an agreement, y'know.