It's raining in Texas. I mean seriously raining.  The television screen is a hash of local maps blotched up by reds, yellows and greens--like Marc Chagall on a bad day. The local weather guy has inserted himself between me and my favorite show--Flash Forward--and in retrospect, that was a good thing.  I really did want to know sixty miles per hour winds were heading our way.  So while the weather guy was intoning ominously I walked out to the car to make sure the windows were rolled up.  My car, you see, is an old Sebring convertible--(I sense former owners all smiling and nodding their heads)--and, well, that particular car tries its best to screw the owner in the billfold.  One trick is to drop the rear windows down a skotch--not enough to notice, certainly enough to flood the back seat during a rainstorm.  Raise the top and the windows come down. Design flaw. The engineer who figured that out is now retired, living in the south of France.  Whatcha gonna do.

I breathed a sigh of relief. The windows were all up.  But. . .the floorboard was still flooded.  Cursing, I scooped it out and tried to dry the place with bathtowels.  Took four of them.  Came back a few minutes later and it was like I hadn't done a thing.  Enough water on the floorboard for a small catfish to swim comfortably.

It was raining at the time, but I couldn't see where the water was getting in--I'd just put on a new top ($!) so I guessed it was coming from beneath the dash.  Perfect.  I start the car and the whole thing shorts out. Pfft.

After more bailing and towells the floorboard was relatively dry.  Then, the water started rising.  It occurred to me that somewhere in the car was a white wormhole connected through time and space to a water planet.  Or maybe Venice. 

Earlier in the day the transmission acted up, and yesterday a spark plug wire stopped transmitting necessary sparks to a cylinder.  I like convertibles, but I'm way past liking this one.  Even my 14-year old tells me I should push it over a cliff.  Except there are no cliffs in S. Texas.

She didn't feel that way about the Plymouth Voyager.  That's because she practically grew up in it.  All her friends told her that the thumbtacks holding the fabric to the roof was cool---and no one could believe it had run 224,000 miles and had gone through three plastic (Chrysler) transmissions.  Even when the onboard computer exploded in the driveway she still wanted to keep it.  Maybe she was thought it was like that old VW bus on Lost.   Got rid of it anyway--and kept the Sebring.  Probably a mistake.  And one I'll correct. 

When it quits raining.