sarahlane.com

About a month ago my car was stolen from a parking lot in Santa Rosa, California. It sucked. I've since bought a new car, and by new I mean a slightly newer version of my old car, which was a 1995 Honda Civic coupe. What can I say? I'm afraid of change. Point A to Point B with decent gas mileage is really all I'm asking for.

By the way, the police ended up finding my old car about three weeks after the theft, parked innocently on a fairly busy street about half a mile from where my mom lives. Because years ago I had taken advantage of the Civic's safety feature that disables the ability to pop the trunk from the lever next to the driver's seat and instead requires an actual key to open the trunk, the thieves (incorrectly) thought that maybe there was something really good back there, and proceeded to rip through my back seats in order to gain access to the following:

1. A yoga mat
2. A pair of Abercrombie pants I hadn't worn in two years
3. A variety of mix CDs I burned in 1999 and gave titles like "Trendy 90's Rock" and "Old Skool Hip Hop"
4. Several Sharpie pens
5. A Dolby Labs hoodie
6. My tax return paperwork from 2003
7. An empty box that the stereo in the dash originally came in
8. A bottle of white wine
9. A set of jumper cables
10. Glitter

Exactly none of these items were taken (I took a bit of offense at the snub of my carefully selected Pinot Grigio), but my back seats were so violently damaged in the process of getting access to these items that my insurance company decided to total the car anyway. Apparently by locking my own trunk in an effort to deter thieves, I directly contributed to my own car's demise. Or at least that's what the insurance adjuster told me, right before I shoved him into oncoming traffic.

My new car is working out splendidly, except for that little warning sign next to the odometer that flashes "Maint. Req'd" at me every time I start it up. What on earth could that mean?