My check engine light is still on. My dad used this doodad (hey, now I get why they call it that) to find out what the deal was. He hooked it up under my dashboard and all of these numbers went flashing on its screen, crazy style. Two codes finally popped up, which we cross-referenced with the doodad's manual. "It's just a sensor," my dad declared. "Nothing to worry about."

Okay, he knows best. Of course, I know even better. I have fond memories of my father servicing my first car, a beauty of an '89 Ford Taurus. For every problem that he "fixed," he created at least two more in its place. "Well, you won't hear that rumbling under the hood anymore," he might say, "but if you need to stop for a traffic light, you'll have to use the emergency parking brake. And, oh yeah, for some reason your radio's only picking up AM now. Darndest thing."

But I want to believe my dad, to believe that car manufacturers put sensors in our cars only to make us spend more money down the road and not because they actually do anything. Problem is, the light is burning bright as a cartoon lighthouse, and now my car sounds like a chorus of old men coughing up their sphincters whenever I attempt to start it. I can only imagine the sound a sphincter might make if one tried to cough it up through the intestines and throat and out of the mouth, but it's been a while since I've used the word "sphincter," so I figured I'd just go for it. Regardless, I feel I'm accruing more problems with each passing day that I don't take the old car in for a real check-up, and I'm starting to feel apprehensive about the whole thing.

I don't want to get rid of my car, not yet. Money aside, I've had this car since I was 19, and it's been a character in my life. I get nostalgic thinking about the places to which I've driven it, and the old friends that used to ride along shotgun. That car was my first major purchase, back when I was wide-eyed and thought that the world lay open in front of me like a blank canvas. It's seen major life changes and events, and it holds more memories than any photo album or scrapbook ever could. I'm not ready to let it go.

I have to nurse it back to health, somehow. The first step will be to take it to a real mechanic and then lie to my father and tell him that he was right and that one should never be so paranoid as to worry about a sensor.

Of any kind.