I got 99 worries and my used car is one

There is no worry like a post purchase of a used car worry, except that intense split-second worry about what to say to someone you have already said “Morning” to that day as you again approach one another in the corridor.
Top tip, “Hello again” is a good one. Or, if you’re really lucky and enough time in the day has passed, you can say “Afternoon”. A tut and “We must stop meeting like this” is useful for a third awkward encounter. “You again” followed by a hearty laugh works for a fourth time. You’re on your own with a fifth meeting, maybe roll your eyes or stare at the floor intently or jump out of a window or fake a heart attack or never leave your desk ever again.
Anyway, where were we… Cat GIFs? Cleavage shorts? Cute dog pictures? Oh right, yeah, used cars. I’m not very adept at this driving web traffic thing.
A used car is the ultimate example of once bitten, forever shy. All the early confidence that cars are indestructible gradually evaporates as an increasingly varied amount of stuff goes wrong. Much like how your body refuses to do now the things it used to be able to do with consummate ease, only it’s a metal box incapable of thought and moods.
First car I ever bought - £600 on a 1998 Renault Clio which worked perfectly at the start and I assumed would work perfectly forevermore with very little or indeed no input from me, right up to the point two of the engine cylinders imploded due to a lack of oil. It is now shaped like a cube or is part of a new washer/dryer combo or something.
Second car - £900 on a 2003 Renault Clio which, in the course of nine months, needed a new cambelt, new clutch, one tyre, a new tesseract power source, new shock absorber and coil and various other bits and bobs which probably all added up to more than the initial outlay on the bloody thing. It is now with a new owner who will enjoy all of these fixes as I developed ‘the fear’ and hated the damn car despite it working properly by the end of it all.
‘The fear’ now remains despite buying a low-mileage used car with a new clutch and a clear MOT.
‘The fear’ means every cough, squeak and judder is an impending sign of vehicular doom, possibly with fire and lopped off limbs involved at some stage.
Oh, the accelerator pedal is vibrating a bit. Wait, what was that noise? Hmm, the engine wouldn’t start first time round. Oh crap, the car shook a bit while stationary. Is that smoke from the exhaust of the car in front?
Even a vehicle health check at the garage which resulted in only new windscreen wipers being slapped on merely acted as a temporary boost. The worry something terrible is likely to occur in the not too distant future remains.
There has been one positive though in the whole vehicle buying process – the car’s number plate as the last three letters of it are ‘FML’.

Already it has bought a smile to the faces of the good folk at Direct Line, the AA and my local garage and presumably anybody who has been stuck behind me in a traffic jam. My car cheers people up wherever it goes.
But it goes back to ‘the fear’. I firmly believe there is now a very real possibility of me at the side of the road, slumped over the roof, head cradled in my arms, in the pouring rain with that number plate firmly in frame being taken captured and instantly becoming a meme.
Fuck my life indeed.