As if the oft unreasonable demands of the webserver weren’t enough (every week it makes me write down the contents of every file on it by hand, insisting that the backups are safer that way) I’ve also had to contend with subliminal commands from the car telling me to drive it like the devil himself were chasing me down in his hellmobile (its got a hemi).

I first began my association with the car almost two years ago. I was twenty-six, making decent though hardly substantial wages, and in need of a new ride. Perceiving that middle age was glowering over the horizon at me I decided that if I was ever going to drive a sports car I best do it now, lest I come off as a midlife crisis case cruising along in my roadster looking for hot chicks with really bad eye-sight.

After much searching I settled on the most stupid route and signed a four-year lease on a brand new vehicle. I thought I had found the car I would most like to be in control of, but never had I realized the car would start off more in control of me.

From the start I found myself highly susceptible to its mental manipulations. It constantly played songs like Born To Be Wild, Bad To The Bone, Lowrider, and Pina Colada (I still don’t understand that one), and pumped in whiffs of car exhaust through the ventilation system, so as to transform me into a sort of speed demon. The moment I took that beast onto the freeway all was lost and I began my career as a fuel-burning, fast-driving idiot.

Speed limits were taken as mere guidelines to be considered then promptly ignored. Slower-moving vehicles were seen as stationary obstacles to be weaved through like so many brightly-colored cones on a high school driving course. The occasional highway patrol car was the only thing capable of lifting my lead food, though I still kept it several miles per hour above the limit in open, sneering defiance.

Unfortunately, my high-speed joyride was doomed to end sooner or later and the first nail in that coffin came in the form of a ticket for driving in excess of 100 mph. That costly lesson would stay on my driving record for six years and includes a significant bump in my insurance costs for that duration. That ticket effectively curtailed my regular applications of the pedal to the metal to more brief and infrequent applications of the same.

Then came the seemingly endless gas price hikes. Driving hard and fast burns significant amounts of fuel and the car, as inevitability would have it, is not just a sports car but a luxury sports car. As such, it requires premium gas to fill its hungry, empty tank. Regular gas was already getting expensive, premium gas required me to will over an unborn child every time I filled up. I owe the oil companies an awful lot of unborn children.

I staved off the pain of increased fuel costs by taking up bicycling to work, a decidedly lower-tech but remarkably fun way of commuting. It worked for a good while to preserve my ability to afford the fun weekend drive, but even that had to come to an end.

The next two blows were the arrival of the webserver who brought along with it an inordinate number of expenses, and my new job which was too far away to bike to. I had to surrender my reckless driving days in favor of driving more sensibly and economically. I had to learn that not all open gaps in traffic meant that I should accelerate hard until I closed it. And I had to learn that cruise control is the easiest way to avoid subconsciously accelerating and maximize vehicle fuel efficiency.

I still hear the car instructing me to push the gas down a little harder and take my turns a little tighter, but I just mostly turn up the radio a bit and ignore it. Sometimes I do give it a little speed, just for old time’s sake, but it’s little more than just a taste.

The next step will be to find someone to assume my lease or purchase the car from the bank. Then I’ll buy a considerably more fuel efficient vehicle either new or used. Possibly a Yaris, Prius, or Civic Hybrid — any of those would make me happy. There are others I need to consider as well.

Fortunately, I can’t afford the Tesla Roadster.

Until then though, I’ll be the guy cruising along at 70 mph on the freeway to work, singing “If you like Pina Coladas.”