Oh, Audrey. Dear, sweet Audrey. The car that hates me. A lot. Not only does she think she can drive better in cold weather than I can, she has now added another little notch in her Most Annoying Car Ever Belt.

Audrey, of course, has an alarm. It's been something like three cars since I last drove something superbly craptacular enough not to have one. Mitsi, the Alero, Nissi, they each had alarms. Their alarms never annoyed me. Ever. The alarms existed, I never acknowledged their existence, it was all good.

Audrey, however, appears to be of the opinion that she is far too cool to have a dog on her precious leather seats. I happen to agree with her, for the most part. Meg (the Bulldog) will never drip a single drop of slobber in that car's interior. She sheds too much, she slobbers endlessly, and she is generally fifty pounds of destruction. Cody (the Havanese) is a whole other issue. He doesn't shed. He doesn't slobber. He eats electrical cords, but those are easily hidden from him. So, I don't really care if he gets in Audrey from time-to-time.

She cares.

If Cody so much as twitches while locked in the car, her alarm goes off. And off. And off. She won't shut up.

We tried disabling the alarm.

We tried locking the doors manually.

We tried reading the owner's manual.

Audrey just plain refuses to lock all four doors unless the alarm is activated.

So, that Audi you saw parked in many Columbus store lots piled to the roof in clearance Christmas scores? Was totally unlocked.

Bet you had known that so you could steal Mr. Canon.

Because he's worth his weight in gold.