What My Honda Did

[Jay Norem]

It was Friday morning, just this past Friday morning. I had an appointment with an eye doctor at 10:45; I'd gone out to get the newspaper, I'd had my coffee and read my emails, I was ready. Feeling good, looking sharp.

I locked up the house and went out to the carport to the carport, where our 2010 Honda Fit was parked. Great car. I was opening the car door when it occurred to me that I'd forgotten the printout with the name of the doctor and where in the Emory clinic he was located. So I went back inside to get the piece of paper, it was on the refrigerator door.

I locked the house again, went back out to the carport and...the car wasn't there, the carport was empty. Now how could that be?

I looked to my right. What I saw I couldn't believe. The car was across the street, sitting on the old-man-who-lives-across-from-me's goddamn front porch.

I started saying "no, no no," I said it over and over again. This wasn't real. I ran across the street to the old man's front door, his name is Mr. Connor. He doesn't live there anymore, the house is empty. He's in an assisted living place. But the alarm system had been triggered and I knew that meant cops.

I got in the car and drove it back up into my carport. It drove just fine. Honda builds good cars! And sure enough, a cop pulled up to the Connor place. I gave him the situation as best I could, and then I went inside to call my insurance company.

I'll be driving a white Chevy Malibu for the next couple of weeks while the Honda's being put back together. The back of it got really bashed up. We have to pay the $500 deductable, and 20% of the cost of renting the bloody Chevy.

How the hell did that damn car roll down the driveway like that? I've been all over it in my mind, going over every possible scenario, and none of it makes any sense. This will probably haunt me for the rest of my life.

[Tenorman]

Did you have the handbrake on?

TVR made a car with in-board rear discs (The Tasmin series). You had to really haul on the handbrake after a long journey. If the discs got hot through a lot of braking, the metal expanded. If the handbrake was not fully on, the car started moving when the discs cooled down and contracted.

A friend's TVR demolished his neighbour's front wall

[jazzbluescat]

Spooky.

Tenorman's explanation is plausible. The brakes were probably on the verge of releasing and when you closed the car's door and it was jolted just enough to start rolling. You just didn't notice it.

Sidebar: I'd have left the Honda where it crashed, for proof of what happened to the cops. If it had happened to me and I moved the car as you did the cops or the insurance company would have probably charged me with some illegal activity.

[docbop]

Same happened to me ages ago. I had always driven cars with automatic transmissions and got my first stick-shift car. So wake up one morning and my car was in my neighbor front yard across the street. i was so used to an automatic with parking gear and rarely used the parking brake. So stupid me I didn't pull the parking brake and left the car in neutral and gravity did the rest. I was lucky no damage to my neighbor's house or my car I guess having to bounce up the curb slowed it down enough.

[MarcJazz]

Pablo Neruda, Eckhart Tolle.