If I decide on a life of crime, someone else must provide my getaway car, because mine takes 10 minutes to start.

Let me tell you how awesome my car is.

It's sooo awesome. It's got an anti-theft system, so no one can start it if they sneak in and decide to take the Alero on a joyride.

Even me. With the key in my hand, turning it in the ignition. Begging, "Please start. Please start. I just want to go hooooome!"

When my car wouldn't start last month before my friend's wedding and last Wednesday as I tried to leave work, I hated life in larger and larger increments. The first time was a fuel injection/ fuel injector/ something with "fuel" and the root word "inject" problem and it cost us about $600. The second time, Dave went online and Googled "Alero" and "something else that got him a link that said it was a fluke with the car."

I was quietly plotting how I'd set the car on fire for the insurance money (just kidding!) when I realized this fluke, this cute little fluke, may have cost us money to fix something that wasn't even broken in the first place. But there's no way of knowing now. I guess when I get to heaven, I'll just ask Jesus for my $600 back.

Furthermore, this cute little fluke could be fixed now! By untrained amateurs! YOU too could start this car! For free! We like free, so Dave took the crazies' advice from the online forum he'd found and turned the key to "On" and waited exactly 10 minutes. Then he pulled the key out, reinserted it, twitched his nose three times and said a magical chant and voila! It starts!

I thought that was it. It was like a secret handshake with my car, that Alero needed me to prove that I was in fact the titleholder of the car. I didn't think I'd have to KEEP doing it. But apparently I was wrong.

From experience now, I can tell you 10 minutes is a looooong time to wait to start your car, especially in the parking lot on a Sunday as you're trying to leave work when you're hungry and nothing's on the radio and you're so tired you could fall asleep sitting up. A lllllloooooooong time.

According to that forum, by the way, the dealership some chick went to said they're not allowed to fix the problem, because it's too complicated. So we'd have to buy some sort of program to reprogram the car. And well ... that sounds expensive. I guess I have to start keeping reading material in the car.