So my car’s in the shop. It’s been intermittently reluctant to start; I haven’t been stranded anywhere yet but my wife drove me to work a couple of days last week and it’s been clear that something needs fixed before it gets worse.

Today we dropped the car off and I picked up a rental. It’s a black Toyota Rav4; perhaps not exactly the model being pictured up there, but close enough.

I absolutely could not get the radio to work. I sat in the parking lot of the rental place for a few minutes trying to make music happen, and when it didn’t, rather than going inside and asking about it or, like, reporting it as a potential defect, I just drove home, intermittently fiddling with the audio settings at stoplights and when it didn’t seem likely to immediately cause me to crash.

I got into my driveway, still sans music, and realized I’d forgotten to get the garage clicker from my car before dropping it off. I sent my wife a text to open the garage door and, hey, come meet me in the driveway too; I have a weird problem.

Then I fiddled for another couple of minutes, cut the engine and went to check the mail.

By the time I got back to the car my wife was outside.

“This is the weirdest thing,” I said. “I can’t get the radio to work.” I’d been able to play music from my phone, but still no radio.

I started the car and the radio came on immediately. Naturally, it was … startlingly loud.

The end.