Things to know

If you don't live in the northeast, you're probably not reading this. If you do, you're aware of the super good times weather outside. Let me relate to you a short tale of discovery and excitement.

The 2001 Jetta that we drive comes with ASR, or Acceleration Slip Regulation. It's the German way of saying Traction Control. How this is supposed to work is that when one or more of the wheels start to lose grip with the road, the car's T-1000 like brain does a bunch of math in shit, all in the span of a couple of miliseconds. If one of the tires loses grip even a little bit, it will decide to do one or all of the following:

• Retard or suppress the spark to one or more cylinders
• Reduce fuel supply to one or more cylinders
• Brake one or more wheels
• Close the throttle, if the vehicle is fitted with drive by wire throttle.
• In turbo-charged vehicles, the boost control solenoid can be actuated to reduce boost and therefore engine power.

That's all well and good, but let me tell you what actually happens: there's this little light on my speedometer. And when I go around a slight turn in shitty weather at about 20mph, the car's Speek-n-Spell like brain goes "Ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit", and that light flashes on and off fast enough to give me a seizure. Then the car goes sideways as the brain figures it should do something with brakes or something, and I turn the wheel to compensate. Then me and the brain go sideways down the on-ramp at 15mph, both of us going "Ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit".
So yeah, I didn't go to work today. I drove to the next exit and turned right the fuck around, the little "ohshitohshit" light flashing on and off, more or less the whole fucking way.

And that's how I started my day!