Hypocardriac

When I was in middle school and thought I was just so cool, I subscribed to a website called Urban Dictionary. Every day, I was emailed a new "word" and it's definition. Usually the words are a compound of two or more English words, to create a new word. Sometimes the words were slang, and sometimes they were English words redefined. One example of this would be Girl. Noun. Origin: unknown. A loud, gossipy, humanoid. Avoid at all costs.

Definitely not a website to take seriously, but amusing nonetheless. In my laziness, I never bothered to unsubscribe. Instead, I now glance at the subject lines of the daily emails and if it looks interesting, or funny, I'll open it up. Otherwise, the email gets deleted without a second thought and I go on my merry little way.

One word, though, has stuck with me in the back of my mind, and that word is hypocardriac. The website's definition can be found here, but I'll sum it up anyway: it's a portmanteau of hypochondriac and car. It's basically defined as someone who constantly thinks something is wrong with their car, or something is going to go wrong with their car.

If the driver owns a 1977 Toyota, yeah, I'd say they're pretty justified in fearing for the well being of their vehicle.

But I own a 2012 Mazda3, which I have to remind myself is a top safety pick by the (insert acronym of several letters, mostly vowels, here.) NATIONAL HIGHWAY DUDES. <-- super technically legitimate term right there. You know who I'm talking about. The IIHC or whatever. The ABCDEF. The infamous "them". Yeah, those guys. If I recall correctly, Mazda proudly sports several models that are top safety picks. I wouldn't drive anything that wasn't!

Isn't she goooorgeous?

My Zoom-Zoom, as I call it, had an owner before me, although it's less than a year old. The guy bought it brand new and owned it for a little more than 6 months before he decided he wanted something bigger. Idiot. I paid used price for a basically new vehicle. It had a lot of miles for only being owned for about 7-8 months (12k!) but she is in otherwise perfect condition. Or so I keep telling myself.

See, on Labor Day of this year I was driving through Dallas, which is undergoing a MAJOR reconstruction of their ENTIRE highway system. Every orange cone in the country is likely residing in Dallas right now. Detours, rerouting, u-turns, 4 lane highways shrinking down to 1 lane, highway closures, and headaches are abundant. Anyway, long story short I was driving with my boyfriend and 2 dogs in a car, and trying to navigate through a twisty turn of cones and merging traffic. I took a turn too sharp, hit a curb, and blew a tire. I pulled over to safety in an empty parking lot, called my mom, and then proceeded to bawl for the next few hours about how I couldn't afford to replace the tire, how it was 100 degrees outside and my dogs needed water, and we couldn't get the damned flat off, because it was still on from the factory and those lugnuts were NOT coming off for anything. Several phone calls and helping hands later, we got the dummy tire on, drove to Sam's Club, and an angel gifted a new tire to me. Three weeks later I found out Mazda offers complimentary 24/7 roadside assistance. Well hell.

Since Labor Day, I've been paranoid.

Well, no, not really. I've started being very cautious around curbs. I don't like vehicles right next to me. Traffic cones unnerve me a little. And when I have to make a right turn, I make my turn a little wider to make sure I'm TOTALLY avoiding that curb.

And I'm still adjusting to driving in North Dakota conditions. See, it's MUCH flatter up here than it is in Dallas. And it's a lot more open. No skyscrapers here. Therefore, the winds get pretty ferocious up here. A daily wind of 13mph is not an uncommon event. Even 20mph winds aren't exactly uncommon! My car is a compact car, and it can and will get blown around a bit by high winds on the highway. Recently, I've noticed my car pulling a little to the left. Maybe it's just the wind, maybe it's just me oversteering. But with the wind, I can't just go find a straight-a-way and let go of my wheel and see if she keeps true. My alignment ought to be perfectly fine; the car is only a year old! But part of me is really concerned when I blew that tire, maybe I tweaked my alignment just slightly.

On THAT note, when I got my car examined pre-1200 mile trip from Big D to Fargo, shouldn't they have checked the alignment?

See? See what I'm talking about? Total hypocardriac. I probably have NOTHING to worry about and I'm freaking out for no reason.

It'd sure figure.

UPDATE: My wonderful boyfriend has driven my vehicle both on city streets on the highway and performed the standard "Is yer alignment dun messt up?" test, i.e. letting to of the wheel and praying she keeps straight.
She passed. My Zoom-Zoom stayed true, and we're chalking it up to high winds blowing me around and me overreacting. We will continue to keep an exceptionally close eye on things, but I'll be a little less stressed when driving now.