What the...?

Ok I have to vent. I guess this makes a funny story unless it happens to you!

So two weeks ago I got up as usual to go to work. I hop in my beautiful (read- dented but reliable) gun metal blue 1989 Honda Civic and it won't start. The night before I had been reflecting on what a trusty and reliable car it has been. Hmm....

Well, Carly had to run me to work and I was late. No biggie, I have flexible work hours.

The following Saturday I do some diagnostics. I discover that the fuel pump isn't getting fuel to the engine. With the help of my neighbor Joel I raise my car and remove the gas tank to get at the fuel pump so I can replace it (I did this once before with my Jeep, so "no prob" I think).

Anyway, without further boring you with details of being covered in grease lying on hot asphalt under my car and propping up the gas tank with one arm while trying to disconnect the hoses with the other arm and draining the gas out of the tank and getting soaked in it, and then having to drive to Pasadena (TX) to get a used gas tank because mine is a little rusty, and then hooking everything back together.....well, it still won't start.

So to cut the story short, I then consider the ignition coil and igniter because I'm not getting a spark. Nope, I don't think that is the problem. BEAR WITH ME, HERE IS WHERE IT GETS GOOD....Now I'm thinking it might be a problem with the ECU (the car's central computer) so I lift up the carpet to get a look at it and.........imagine my surprise (and chagrin) when I see ITS NOT THERE! HAHAH!

You know in the movies when the bankers get to the bank in the morning and the bank vault is wide open with all the contents gone??? Well that was me except for business carried on for two weeks until I actually checked the vault and found out someone stole my ECU! For all of the non-car mechanics out there the ECU is the brain of the car if the engine is the heart. Yes, someone actually broke into my (locked) car and stole my ECU.

I guess it's just another sign of the tight economic times. I get solice thinking that the culprit was most likely a mother who was on her last dollar and needed some money to feed her two starving children. Sort of like that lady that ripped me off in Brazil....but that is another story...

Or maybe it was just a couple of meddlesome teenagers. Or a drugee. Or a highly organized ring of car ECU thieves. And by the way, no, we don't live in the "ghetto"...this is about as suburban as suburban can get. I mean the town is named "Seabrook" for goodness sakes! If that doesn't evoke pleasant images of a bubbling stream meandering through a pastoral utopia, then I don't know what does!

Moral of the story: Just because your car is cheap, doesn't mean the theives won't reap!