Congratulations on Hotwiring Your Own Subaru!

Most people will go their whole lives without having to hotwire a car. Most people avoid danger at all costs, mitigate risks and generally don’t draw the ire of international terrorists who concoct elaborate revenge schemes every time one of their ill-founded plans goes awry. But you’re a super sexy secret agent who happens to be incredibly gay and madly in love with her partner and today, in a perfect storm of shittiness, your partner is going to be kidnapped by terrorists and you’re going to lose your keys.

That means when the cell phone call comes in at 11:30 PM that you should show up at a public park by midnight or the love of your life will be lowered in a shark tank that the terrorists brought to the park at great personal expense, you’re not going to be able to call AAA and wait for them to show up. Hell, you won’t even have time to call the office and ask them to send a bunch of snipers down to the park the way you normally would. You’ll just have enough time to break into your car and hotwire it.

It’ll start with a coat hanger. You’ll twist it up and ram it between the rubber buffer outside the window and the window itself, feeling for the locking mechanism on the outside of the door. The Subaru Forester isn’t exactly a tough cookie to crack, though, so this won’t take more than a few seconds.

Once the door lock is off and you’re behind the driver’s seat, that’s when it’ll get tough. You won’t have enough bars on your i-phone to pull down an electrical diagram for your car. That means you’ll have to wing it.

You’ll have your wire strippers with you, rusted and well-loved but no worse for wear, and with them in hand you’ll slice through plastic and slip the wiring out from under the dash, one cluster of wires in each hand. You’ll strip them down a quarter inch each and begin twining them together one by one. You’ll have only the vaguest idea of what you’re doing, since most spy training consists of watching old movies about the CIA (and two of the four Die Hard films) but you won’t be discouraged. Each splinter of copper in your skin, each tiny shock from a mistake, will be like a badge of honor for you.

And after ten minutes of despair and trial and error, pairing each cluster of ignition wires together in every possible combination, you’ll finally hit on one that works. The engine will sputter as you touch the wires together, then roar as you twist and bind them.

“Fuck you, Google,” you’ll mumble at your worthless phone as you pull your car into reverse and back out of your driveway, racing the night towards the woman you love.

Congratulations on Hotwiring Your Own Subaru!