When I bought the car, the seller told me that the horn had a funny short. When the weather dropped below a certain temperature, he said, the horn would start blowing and I'd have to disconnect it to make it stop. Of course that happened on a Friday night after midnight when I was in my pajamas. I ran down the stairs to the parking lot of the apartment complex, and while a crowd gathered, I threw up the hood and disconnected the horn.
Driving without a horn all winter broke me of some of the (possibly bad depending on your perspective) habits I'd developed when I learned how to drive in Boston.
Three friends and I drove the LTD to Seattle for Thanksgiving that year. At some point we realized that the heater had stopped working and we got colder and colder. We crammed all four of us in the front seat--which wasn't all that much of a cram because the car was massive--but eventually I couldn't tell that it was my frozen foot on the gas pedal. We decided it might be smart to stop for the night and drive the rest of the way the next morning.
And then there was the day I somehow edged out into the lane of oncoming traffic when I was waiting to make a left turn and dinged the front end of a car driven by a lady with a French poodle. Luckily she was stopped at a red light so it was a very low speed accident. But, hoo boy, a lady with a French poodle. She was downright chilly about the whole affair.
By spring, I wisely decided to trade in the old car for something a bit more reliable (and not as huge). I wanted to be sure I could get all the way home for the summer.
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