Remember my car, Audrey? You know, the one that tells me she may eventually need gas by dinging like a doorbell beneath the finger of a 2-year old? DINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDING. The same car that started calling me names within a week of having her?

Yeah, she hates me.

And is trying to kill me.

Now, before you get all "Gah! Quit being so dramatic!" you should know that Audrey is like 99.9% computer. When I turn the key to shut off the engine, she sounds EXACTLY like a bunch of servers after you press and hold the power key for a cold shut down. NOOOOoooooooohateyou.

Artificial intelligence is alive and well, and it's coursing through the angry veins of my ol' Audi.

Some time ago I figured out that Audrey is so totally bluffing when she starts throwing a fit about needing gas. I have mastered the art of driving her until precisely two gallons of gas remains in her tank. She thanks me by acting all stoopid when I try to start her with anything less than a 1/4 tank. I would think she has fuel pump issues (gee, wonder how that would happen), but she doesn't. Nope, she has ATTITUDE problems. If there is less than 1/4 tank of gas, Audrey will use her super-computer brain to keep the car from starting exactly once. Just once. It's like a little jab, "You think you can treat me like this? I want gas, beyotch!" Then she starts. And potentially could drive another 70 miles before getting down to two gallons of gas.

You see that? I said TWO gallons of gas. Every other car I have had I ran down to ONE gallon of gas. Audrey has scared me into doubling my gasoline tolerance.

She hates me.

Not only that, she thinks she knows more than me and is absolutely going to kill me while proving it.

The other day I was cruising back from gymnastics with Alexis. Now, when I have Alexis in the car, I toss my Danica Patrick costume in the trunk and drive like a normal human being who knows how to (sort of) obey the speed limit. Seriously, I drive nice when she's in the car. Really. In part because I like her and want to keep her around for a few more years, and in part because she'll yell, "MOMMA! YOU'RE DRIVING REALLY FAST!" if I don't.

So I was nicely driving down a windy road on a blustery cold evening. There wasn't a hint of ice or snow anywhere to be found, although Audrey's dash reported that it was certainly cold enough for snow. Not only did she have the cute little snowflake all lit up, she reported that the temperature was 27 degrees.

Suddenly, Audrey jerked. And again. It was like some invisible force had lifted my foot off the gas and pumped the breaks REALLY HARD. I was all WTH? but when it didn't happen again, I forgot about it.

Until it happened again later last week. Once again it was a chilly winter day, and once again the roads were totally dry. Once again I was driving nicely down the road when suddenly JERRRRK JERRRRRK. This time I realized that at the precise moment that Audrey was all STOPGO STOPGO a little orange light had flashed on the dash.

So I decided to get to the bottom of the madness and consulted Audrey's owners manual. I turned to page 27 and was told that the little orange light was Audrey's ESP light.

Yes, ESP light.

Page 27 also told me that if I wanted to know more about Audrey's ESP, I needed to turn to page 114. Page 114 told me (totally paraphrasing here, but not exaggerating), "That's Audrey's ESP light. It comes on sometimes. For more information, go to page 27."

Ummmmm . . . thanks?

So, I dug deeper. I looked up "ESP" in the back and was directed to pages 27, 114, and 146. Fortunately, page 146 actually told me something other than, "Yes, that light exists." It told me that ESP, in this case, stands for Electronic Stabilization Program.

(At this point, any guys reading this are all "GAH! Women should not be allowed to drive!" Shooosh. Men shouldn't be allowed to talk.)

Electronic Stabilization Program, according to Audi, "help make the vehicle easier to control in handling situations close to the limit. . . ESP detects the car's intended direction and responses. It applies the brakes on individual wheels . . ." blah, blah, blah.

In other words, Audrey is under the impression that 35 mph is "close to the limit" and she doesn't think I'm smart enough to know when to pump the breaks, so she does it for me while PREDICTING where she thinks I need to go.

If Audrey ever rolls off a bridge after I take a sledgehammer to her DINGDINGDINGDINGY dash, it won't be my fault. The goober car has ESP and should know how to run and duck for cover.