There Were Four Tires and a Windshield, I Know That Much for Sure...

I stood on my front steps last evening, talking to my neighbor, a woman as ridiculously vigilant regarding the park as I am.

You see, there’s a public park across the street from our properties, a lovely green spot with big trees. There’s soccer and baseball in the summer, hockey in the winter, large intra-mural colored-tee-shirt-wearing competitions between teenagers of different churches.

“Current standings: Lamb of God has walloped Christ Our Lord at the three-legged race; House of Mercy has trounced Abundant Life in punt/pass/throw and up next: The Church of the Nazarene versus The Living Word. You have two minutes to the starting gun! Two minutes, Christians!”

Screaming/laughing kids, the bull-horned announcements, the litter, the cars.

The cars.

Cars with lives of their own.

Sometimes the cars pull up, cut their engines, make phone calls, wait for other cars. Thug-Life tattooed men move things from one trunk to another and then speed away.

And there I am, on my second-floor porch, watching, trying to get a license plate number. Difficult to do, but the binoculars I got for my birthday help.

What, you didn't ask for binoculars? You should. They're terribly handy. Because Big Pimpin' and Candi-Brandee-Tiphernee-Kryssttaal down there at street level?

Those aren’t hotdish recipes they’re trading.

And the beautiful thing about the second floor? No one ever looks up.

Of course, you know I call it in every time; but the cops haven’t made it in time to catch them yet.

And the cars – who can describe them? That’s the problem when you can’t get the plate number. How in the world do I describe them?

“Ummm. It was a white car. Rich but tacky looking. Four doors and tinted windows. I’m pretty sure it had tires, probably four And there was chrome. Lots of chrome. Oh, and I believe “Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle” was on the DVD player in the back, but I might be wrong about that.”

Have you seen that car?

When did I stop knowing things about cars? I like to think it was when, at least in my eyes, they stopped being distinctive and interesting, but it could actually be about the time I didn’t have to know about cars any more, aka after me and the Loose Nut Behind The Wheel broke up.

I think I became willfully ignorant after that, just because I could.

Ha! Take that, ex-boyfriend! I refuse to remember what you taught me!

That’ll teach him to, uh, teach.

Anyway, what I know about cars would fill a thimble, and here it is:

You absolutely can flush your own radiator by following the directions on a package; if you’ve just changed your oil and yet nothing registers on the dipstick you might want to check to see if you bothered to put the oilplug back in; no matter what anyone tells you, your Van Allen Belt is not loose; and there’s not been a single recorded instance of someone being dangerously low on blinker fluid.

And when you absolutely can’t tell a Honda Accord from a Honda Civic, you keep your camera at hand.

Bring on the arms traders.