Blasted Subaru, I'll kill you

I like Subaru. I really do. (And the rest of this will read like Dr. Seuss, too. Just kidding.)
They make dependable cars that are easy on the eyes and are way more powerful than they look.
When my wife got a Forester a few years back, I was actually excited.
It only had 50,000 miles on it, and was made before Subaru starting producing Foresters to look like actual SUVs.
I told her at the time that I wanted my next car to be an Imprezza, because I've always been, well, imprezzed with them (That was bad, ugh. OK, shake it off, move on.)
Now I'm not so sure.
As soon as we paid off the Subaru, Murphy's Law went into full effect.
The thing has become a mobile money pit.
New starters, ruptured all-wheel-drive joints, spark plugs, etc. You name it, we've had to replace it.
The last time the car was in the shop, they actually told my wife they had to "break a bolt" to get to the problem area to fix the car.
Break a bolt? I don't know much about cars, but that is a totally new one on me.
"Yeah, we're going to have to break your legs to work on those muscle spasms you've been having."
Are these people mechanics or some weird, post apocalyptic machine cult?
Anyway, when the car had to be healed through applying the medieval medical logic of breaking it first, it cost us around $700. That is insane.
But, as exclusive members of the ever-shrinking middle class, we had no choice really but to fix the thing.
So, we got through that.
That was last month.
New year, new problem.
My wife went to her car last night at about 11 p.m. to make the drive home from where we work.
She then re-appeared in the newsroom.
"Well, the car won't start."
We were sort of expecting this. The starter had been grinding and something was obviously amiss.
Still, I immediately began to wonder if this car had a soul, and, if so, how could I maim it?
Deep breath. Call AAA. That's why we signed up, right?
My wife gets redirected once, then again. Finally someone tells us a tow company will call us when they're five minutes away.
We get a call.
Turns out the guy is not five minutes away, he is still in bed, and wants to know if there's a good reason for him to come out.
Let's see, the car is in a metered space. We work at night. We don't live in the town that we work in. Parked cars are frequently broken into in the town that we work in. Any other questions?
The man, who signed up to be a 24-hour contractor with AAA, was completely belligerent. He screamed that he was on his way, and then hung up on my wife in the middle of her talking.
My wife and I are not complainers. But when we are treated like that because we are calling a service that we pay for, it strikes a nerve.
So, I had to go into a mode that I've never really been comfortable with, but have had to assume from time to time since entering the bonds of matrimony. That of the enforcer.  I know, I know, I'm laughing, too.
But there have been numerous times over the past seven years where I've had to step up and say "Look, fix the problem, and never talk to my wife like that again."
So I braced for the awkward moment as the guy was hooking the Subaru up to his flat-bed. I was a bit empowered by the fact that he had accidentally mooned me several times. Once you've seen some one's ass, you have all the leverage in the conversation.
So we talked. Not angrily. He understood.
"Look, if you want to call AAA and tell them I was a dickhead, it's OK with me," he said.
I didn't have the heart to tell him we already had.
When my wife returned to the car, he started becoming belligerent again. Then he dropped in it was his last day. Oh, we are so following you to the repair shop.
We got to bed at about 2 a.m.
While the tow driver diverted some of the focus from the actual problem, I have had it with this car.
I'm tempted to pull a Basil Fawlty, taking a switch down from a tree and thrashing the damn thing across the hood. But the neighbors would see and probably finally call the police. I've had it coming for a while now.
So, I'm trying to stay calm. There are, after all, bigger problems in the world and all that. Still, if this car had a neck, I might throttle it just a tad.

To see John Cleese as Basil Fawlty beating his car, check out this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8YFxuKrJBI