Cars and IPOIO

Well, today I took my 2001 Honda Civic in for its 80,000-mile checkup. As anybody who owns a car knows, they will continue to cost money for their owners as long as you have them. They are inanimate objects with moving parts, and they wear out.

As far as cars go, this Civic has been pretty good to me. Other than having to do the periodic maintenance, it hasn't cost me much since I bought it used in 2004. It gets almost 40 mpg on the highway. Before it turns over 100,000 miles I will need to get a new timing belt, and today all of the car's fluids are being replaced. Any time my car, which is named "Silver Auto" (sounds like "Silverado" when you say it), is put up on the rack and looked at from underneath, I get a little worried. What will they find that they haven't seen yet?

My father used to have a saying: "I.P.O.I.O." Whenever he was under a car looking up at the underside, I would hear that phrase, "I.P.O.I.O." It stands for the Innate Perversity Of Inanimate Objects. I still hear his voice in my head when something goes wrong with any machine in my house, and I smile at the recollection. I wonder where HE learned it?
:-)