Sugar Plum, the wonder Honda, is a bit weary from the year of no driving. Ok, she was weary to start with before I left for Ireland.

Miraculously, she survived her year of non-operation in my brother's driveway, other than having a local youth relieve her of her stereo. When I returned 6 weeks ago, I was able to start her up with a jump, go get new hubcaps from Hubcap Mike, and Sugar Plum has been happily trotting down the road, albeit with a stereo sized hole in the dashboard.

On Friday night, whilst driving home from Whole Foods, I received several honks from other drivers. It was not until I was driving down Bolsa Chica that a fellow in another car informed me that Sugar Plum did not have her back lights on. Crap.

Ever since Sugar Plum was purchased as a gently used auto, she has had electrical problems and shorted out 2 stereos. I became quite competent at checking and replacing the fuses under the steering wheel. After much to do, we found out that the previous owner or their stereo installer had screwed a screw into a wire in the trunk while trying to install the back speakers. We solved the problem by pulling out all the screws in the back speakers, which was much cheaper than running all new wires from the front of the car to the back.

Yesterday morning I tested all the fuses and they are all working. Joe and I pulled out all the lights from the back: parking/running, brake, and turn signal, all the blubs were good and the filaments happy. The brakes work and so do the signals, but the running lights don't turn on when I turn on the headlights. Joe looked it over and said, "Sugar Plum has a short."

Electrical wiring is tricky, to find the short and re-wire may take more than she is worth. Sugar Plum needs to become some teenager's project car... Do you know a nice young person taking auto shop who would like to rebuild and revamp a Honda?