Why can’t my jobs and cars learn to get along together?

 Who knew that changing jobs would be so hard on my cars. Given how absurd and statistically unlikely these coincidences are, I must conclude there is something sinister plotting against my upward mobility.

For 26 years this dark, unseen entity has been lurking under the hoods of my various vehicles. I never noticed the pattern until recently. Now it unfolds like a badly written detective novel.

The first attack was innocent enough. As a newlywed just starting my career, I traded my beloved 1977 candy apple red Camaro in on a brand new 1987 Nissan Pulsar. I did so because I had a new job and could afford it, but also because the Camaro was nickel-and-diming me to death.

My bride instantly laid claim to the sports car and unceremoniously dumped her aging but dependable Ford Escort on me. Score: One job, one car.

After two miserably cold years in Minnesota, I took a job in North Carolina. The night before we left, a deer sideswiped the Pulsar and took out the driver side mirror. Two months after starting in North Carolina, a truck pulled out in front of me on a highway and crunched the Escort. Score: Two jobs, 2.25 cars.

Seven years and two vehicle upgrades later, the marriage ended and I returned home to Colorado with one lemon of a Hyundai Sonata. It rolled over and died just as I was preparing to start a job as a ticket taker for the Colorado Rockies. On my first day I drove my mother’s car. After the game we got hit with a flash flood and I flooded the engine on the car. Score: Three jobs, four cars.

I then started working with my hometown newspaper and rewarded myself with a Toyota pickup truck. Score: Four jobs, five cars. A couple years later I married Sandy and we went through a few vehicle changes. Among them, the truck was sacrificed for a Ford Taurus wagon. Since that happened well into my job, I don’t count it as part of the auto conspiracy.  Score: Four jobs, four cars.

In 2005 I accepted a position with the Amarillo Globe-News. The Taurus stayed with me both years I was there. Score: Five jobs, four cars. I then took the editor’s job an hour away at the Hereford Brand. This long commute and the poor state of the Taurus required a change to something more efficient. Enter the 2003 Saturn Ion. Score: Six jobs, five cars.

Five years ago I accepted a position with Houston Community Newspapers to run their paper in Hempstead. Just before we made the move, my wife got rear-ended in Amarillo, totaling her van. Score: Six jobs, six cars.

Within a couple of months of my arrival down here, a tree – a co-conspirator to be sure – jumped out and bit the side of my car while I was driving home. Score: Seven jobs, 6.5 cars.

We fixed the Saturn and my wife bought her father’s old Ford Explorer to replace the van. We live in Rosenberg across the street from a Mexican restaurant and cantina and cattycorner to two bars. I think we counted five or six hit-and-run dings in the old Explorer during the first three years. Then came the biggie. The day before I started work in 2012 for Community Impact Newspaper, another hit-and-run artist smashed my Saturn into the back of the Explorer. The Saturn was a goner and the Explorer suffered yet more cosmetic damage.

We used the insurance settlement to buy me a 2001 Toyota Camry and we upgraded my wife to a newer Explorer. One week later the Camry took at hit-and-run shot that dented the back quarter panel. Score: Eight jobs, 8.25 cars.

That brings me to my job here in Sealy. Just over a week into the job and the Camry goes down with a bent rod. At the time of this writing we are attempting to replace the engine. Score: Nine jobs, 8.75 cars.

Changing jobs is like a bad omen for my car. To be certain there is some strange, unexplained phenomena at work. Something either doesn’t want me switching jobs or else my cars have an aversion to new employment.

Seeing how I like my job and my car I’m going to have to find a way to make them get along. They’re just going to have to learn to play nice with each other. And once I find the demon that is plaguing my cars I plan to banish it to my ex-wife. I still haven’t quite forgiven her for tricking me into trading in the Camaro and then sticking me with the Escort. That is, after all, where this whole mess began.