BETWEEN THE LINES: WEIRD WEATHER, WHEELS DIASTROUS COMBINATION

Over the years, my car has had more minor repairs than I care to recall, especially since I'm to blame for most of them.

I'm not sure how it knows when payday arrives, but my car always seems to break down just prior to that time.

So I really shouldn't have been surprised to drive home last Tuesday night and hear the hiss of air escaping from the tire of my Mustang.

I was just lucky to have make it home before the tire blew.

Since I couldn't drive the car, I called a repair service to come out and fix the tire the next morning. Eventually, I bought two new tires and was spared the cost of a repair call.

Funny, but the $100 I spent on tires probably cost more than the $20 or $30 that I'd have spent on a repair call.

Over the years, my car has had more minor repairs than I care to recall, especially since I'm to blame for most of them.

As I look back on it, some of the mishaps are much funnier now. At the time, I didn't find these incidents humorous. But they could have won prizes as "America's Funniest Home Videos."

Living in Southeast Missouri I had grown accustomed to the strange weather patterns. But I'd never prepared myself for driving in flash floods.

In a particularly low intersection of town, I flooded my car one rainy, summer evening.

Luckily, my mother was riding with me so I had help pushing it through the knee-deep waters. (She didn't think it was lucky, though.) The engine was already wet, but the splash of passing cars didn't sit well with me.

The car dried out with no real harm done, except that the same embarrassing scenario repeated itself in Florida.

I left the state before hurricanes struck, but during June there was a terrible rash of storms. It had stormed terribly since 4 p.m. one Tuesday and I'd stayed at the office late hoping that the worst was over.

When I left, I chose a different-than-usual route home because the intersection just past the office parking lot was flooded and all the stoplights were out.

It never occurred to me that it was also the route nearest the river and probably had the lowest elevation.

Needless to say, I flooded the engine trying to get through an intersection. I pushed the car to the curb near the park, while other vehicles passed by, creating waves in the water. A film crew from the local TV station filmed the passing cars and just happened to catch me on tape.

The next day at work, I was a celebrity. People stopped me on the elevator and asked if I had car trouble the night before. I didn't know how they knew until I heard another person talking about the newscast. She'd seen a woman pushing her car through the floodwaters and thought it was terrible that no one stopped to help.

"That woman was me," I explained.

(Just a little note for future reference, the next time you see a woman pushing her car along the road, STOP AND HELP! It's not something we do for fun.)

All in all, driving in the heavy rain has been both a test of my strength and patience.

Snow isn't much better on my car, and Monday's snowfall started my mind rolling. I really need a car with front-wheel drive if I'm going to make it through another winter.

And things have gotten so bad lately, I've contemplated trading my car in for a newer model. Of course, every time I drive or rent another car, I realize just how much I like mine.

I seem to have a love-hate relationship with my car. As much as I love driving it and am comfortable with it, I hate that it breaks down and is constantly in need of repairs.

So maybe it's a good thing that the car I was interested in buying has just been sold.

~Laura Johnston is a copy editor for the Southeast Missourian.