Some are Meant to be Broken

Last year, in the final week's of December, I started to be able to smell gas fumes in my car. They were faint at first, but gradually grew stronger, to the point that it was nauseating to drive for long periods of time in slow traffic. (At higher speeds, the air movement thinned out the smell of gas enough that it wasn't too bad - though it still wasn't good.)

On the 27th of December (2013), I took my car in to the shop, and although they couldn't find out the exact cause of the smell, they found there was some issue with one of my oil hoses, which was causing my sparkplugs to misfire. So they fixed that and cleaned it up, in the hopes that that was enough to stop the fumes.

It wasn't.

So, on December 31st of 2013, I took my car back into the shop, where they this time found the gaskets which were causing the leakage - and just happened to mention that the gas fumes, combined with the misfiring spark plugs, could have resulted in a massive car fire.

But that didn't happen. (Phew.)

This year, on the 27th of December, I was in South Dakota, having driven to my home town to see my family after spending Christmas Eve and Day with Christopher's side of the family. I'm happy to say that there were no issues with my car on the drive there on the 26th, and no noticeable issues on the way back on the 29th. The 30th, however, was a whole different matter.

After the massive temperature drop between the 26th and 29th, I started to notice the gasoline smell again while sitting in traffic on the 30th. It was faint at first, though, and I thought it might just be traffic smells caused by the cold temps. Until I was driving home and the car was filled with the smell, which only got worse when I drove to and from a movie last night.

Which, then, resulted in me taking my car in to the shop this morning on the way to work - on December 31st of 2014.

Apparently taking my car to the shop on New Year's Eve is becoming a tradition for me. Though, truth be told, it's one that I'm very much hoping to break away from on December 31st of 2015. In fact, I've decided that it's going to be my primary resolution for the coming year. I really hope that it's one I can keep.