So I'm driving to my office, as I do everyday, and the moment I arrive to the building's security booth and the pike is lifted to allow me to pass, I notice to my dismay that the clutch doesn't respond and I can barely shift the gears; so I had to climb the ramp and immediately turn around and exit the building's parking lot, to see if I can manage to get to the repairshop that's just 200 meters away from my office, but by now I can't shif any gears. I have no option but to pull my car to keep it from obstructing the exit, with the help of a security officer that offered assistance; I hurt my back in the process, but I managed to call the repairshop and they sent a mechanic to assist me in making the car cover the distance to their garage.

At first I was pretty mad and frustrated that this happened to me, when just last week, Last freaking week! I took the damn car to that same repairshop, to have it tuned and checked for its semestral pollution verification—which is required by law here in Mexico—and they failed to warn me about the clutch, but they sure advised me on many other things the car needed, such as a new pair of fasteners for the radiator; I had already paid over US$500 and as I was writing this they've called to inform me the new charge this time will be US$420—I yelled a little, but I only managed to get a 15% discount.

"Boy!", I thought, "What a lousy luck I have."

But then it hit me. You see, this problem I had with the car was in fact incredibly auspicious; not only I was fortunate enough to arrive to my destination, but the car did not malfunction during the most dangerous parts of my commute, which are either the city's fastlanes, or the short part of the state highway I cover by the end of my daily trip—where I and everybody else speed up to 60 mph or more. So, in fact this was a best case scenario, because I could have suffered a major car accident, I could be dead by now.

And the funniest thing about this is that it's not the only time I've had such "lousy" good luck when it comes to car malfunctions. One time I'd taken my car to another repairshop, they returned it to me and on the next morning the rear wheel's axle split in two, but I was still inside my neighborhood and going pretty slow, I don't want to imagine what would have happened if the axle had broken while travelling on the fastlanes at 40-50 mph.

The thing is that most of the times I've had troubles with my car, I've been either close to my office or close to my own home; and they have been annoying—and expensive—as Hell, and yet I've never been involved in a serious car accident.

In fact, the last accident I was involved in a heavy truck hit me in the rear left wheel, but I managed to keep the car under control, and where I pulled over to assess the damage I was already about to arrive to my office; the thing could have been pretty nasty, but the car didn't get beat up much and I left without a single bone broken.

I must acknowledge that I've either been terribly unfortunate, or incredibly lucky. To tell the truth, I've never suffered a broken bone in all my life—well, I did broke my left knee's ligament playing basketball, but I don't think that counts; the only times I've been in a hospital were a)the day I was born, and b)that time I was 4 and accidentally swallowed some vegetable disinfectant. That was 30 years ago.

I guess someone up there wants me to keep doing my TDG gig for a little while ;-)

But, yeah... I'm definitely selling my car this year. Anyone interested? It may be in need of a good paint job, but it's got a really good guardian angel under the hood :0)