Thing #153: Lock De-Icer Keychain

This little gadget has a protruding metal piece that heats up when you protrude it, for de-icing your car's lock. It also has a little mini-flashlight.

I never got much use out of this, and now it appears that the battery has died, and also I no longer own a car.

Thing #52: 1995 Acura Integra

I sold this little darling in October, although it was undrivable for a couple weeks before I actually got rid of it. I really don't know whether this should count as a "thing" since I'm likely to replace it sooner or later. On the other hand, I intend to go the remainder of 2011 without one.

I'm just going to go ahead and count it since I have no specific plans to replace it in the near future. Maybe the best thing would be to commit to staying carless until I've finished giving up all 363 things? That seems fair. And good motivation to speed up...

Thing #37: Windshield Wipers

Sometimes you find something in your closet and you can't remember anything about how it got there or why you didn't just throw it away in the first place.

Thing #13: Ice Scraper

This was in my car when I moved from Seattle to Chicago. This is plenty of ice scraping power when you live in Seattle. This is not nearly enough ice scraping power when you live in Chicago, which is why I have a much bigger ice scraper with a snow brush and a longer handle and everything.

I hope somebody else can use a little ice scraper.

Thing #10: Spark Plugs

Two years ago, my car at the time (a lovely 1991 Honda Accord) had a little engine trouble. Wasn't getting a lot of power. Hoping it was something simple, I tried replacing the spark plugs; they're cheap and swapping them is just as easy as checking them. That didn't work. Long story short, it needed a new cylinder head and I sold it to a kid from the South Side who wanted to fix it up for his girlfriend.

I'd kept the old plugs as backups, I guess, before I sold the car. Just found them in the closet and decided it's probably time to throw them away.

Thing #2: Keys to a Ford Taurus

A few months ago I sold Paul's old car for him. I forgot to give the buyer the second set of keys at the time of the sale, and I held onto them for awhile just in case he called back and asked for them or something. He didn't.

I used a public trash can on a street corner; I hope somebody saw me and was totally baffled as to why on earth somebody would just casually toss their car keys in the garbage. I hope their imagination involved a joyride of some kind.