Well that was exciting

Hubby and I were out running errands earlier today, one of which included picking up a load of firewood. When we're done, I'm driving his truck back to the house, and he's following me in his car.

We get maybe a mile from the house, and I'm sitting at a stoplight, about 3rd in line. When the light turns green, he pulls out from behind me, crosses the center line, and punches the gas hard. He goes sailing around me and the cars in front of me, swerves in the intersection to avoid oncoming traffic, and speeds on for another quarter-mile or so before turning into a side street.

In my 16 years of living with this man, I've never seen him do anything remotely like this. I pick up my cell phone and call him.

What happened?

There's smoke coming from my trunk.

Mind you, this is a 2006 Lexus that we we've had less than three months. (He's been driving work trucks for 15 years. We splurged this summer and bought him a nice car.) He started smelling the smoke at the intersection. When he checked the rear view mirror, he saw it pouring from around his back seat. Hence the Smokey-and-the-Bandit maneuver.

So I circle back to find out what's going on. He's already shut off the car and started off-loading the trunk, and he can't find the source. He's on hold with the dealer requesting a rollback truck. And I can smell the smoke when I get out of the truck.

So the dealer gives him another number to call for the wrecker service, and I start moving his work stuff from the car to the truck. And in the process, I find a small, burnt electronic device. It's not automotive. It's the type of computer controller module he installs in his business.

I show it to him. He stops talking to the wrecker lady, stares at it for maybe 15 seconds, and then tells her never mind. Apparently this module has a battery backup, and in the process of sliding around in the trunk, both terminals made contact with the metallic license plate frame the dealer gave him, and it shorted out.

At least it didn't cause any real damage to the car. That's all we need is for a load of free firewood to cost us a brand new car.