Beep Attack at the Silver 7

Today on the way to Venice I stopped at the Silver 7 (the 7-11 on the corner of Effie and Silver Lake Blvd.) and when I came out and started my car, I heard a horn honking. Repeatedly. Loudly. Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep to the nth power!

[for full effect, print this out, go out to your car, and just honk your horn every second as you read this]

At first I thought it was someone else’s car. I even passed judgment. I thought to myself, they should learn how to control their happy horn car alarm! But then I noticed a man looking straight at me, passing the exact same judgment. Holy shit, it's MY car! But I don’t have an alarm. I didn’t even know my horn worked. But no, oh no, it works. It works so well, it just wouldn’t stop. You never really know how loud car horns really are until something like this happens. But they’re loud. So loud, I couldn’t think, and I couldn’t see straight. And it only got louder and angrier.

I sat in the driver’s seat, hesitating, hovering between confusion and shame. I had never heard of incessant horn syndrome, but my car had caught a bad case, and I sure as hell did not have the remedy. I tried to find 'Horn’ in my Honda Accord user manual index without success. Then I looked up ‘Deaf’ and ‘Fucked’ and found my picture. As the horn got louder, people everywhere looked at me. From inside the convenience store. From other cars waiting at the stoplight. From across the street. Even dogs on leashes wondered what was for lunch. Standing outside the 7-11 stark naked would be way better than this.

Stressfully coming to terms with the fact that the honking was not going to stop, I got out of my car and paced in front of my car like a crazy person, fielding odd, sympathetic looks by yelling to them my car is possessed. But I couldn’t keep this up forever. Should I just abandon my car before I get arrested for disturbing the peace? I turned around and looked at my car. What’s wrong with you?

Luckily, I live in a city that takes cars very seriously. If you play the clueless damsel in distress part long enough, some auto mechanic type is bound to come to your rescue. From a friendly stranger in a Michael Jordan jersey, I learned that my horn wire had touched some metal, causing the horn to burn out and go berserk. Whether or not this is true, he managed to stop the beep by doing some voodoo under the hood. I can’t use my car horn until I get it replaced, so it looks like I’m just going to have to rely on the good old finger. Watch out, 405 freeway. My possessed car "Christine" and I are coming your way tonight!