Before I left for California, I switched cars with my father. He graciously gave me his newer car since it was a little bigger and was in a little better shape than mine. He didn't think my old car would be able to make the trip across the country. Plus, they're planning on selling one of their cars and only taking one across the country for their own move, so they wanted to sell off my older car rather than their newer one.

Dad wrote me an e-mail a few days ago saying that there were problems with my old car and he didn't know how long she was going to last. I felt a rather strong pang of guilt for leaving her behind in Connecticut to "die a slow death," as it were, since we'd been through so much together and I had always thought she'd last a lot longer. She was definitely an extension of me, we made quite the team and I still haven't fully accepted the car I'm driving now as "my own." That is, until I got another e-mail from my mother this morning. The problem with the car had been solved. Dad found out what it was just before he was getting ready to take the car to a mechanic to have her looked at. He had gone shopping a week ago, bought broccoli and a gallon of milk, then forgot them in the trunk and left them there to spoil. The smell had permeated the car and he thought it was a problem with the engine. So instead of taking the car to the mechanic's shop (who conceivably could've either laughed their asses off as I did or charged him an exorbitant amount of money for some made-up repair... or done both), he took the car to an auto cleaner who is fumigating the car and shampooing the fabric inside the cabin and trunk.

I really should've expected something like this. We are talking about people who had to call me long-distance to ask me how to fix their computer and program their VCR. And Apple says their iMacs are relatively idiot-proof... well, they haven't tested them against my parents. They're brilliant people in their own way, but technologically, they're like island natives and I am their missionary, coming to bring them into the modern age and civilize them using the Internet.