I WAS IN THE DEATH-SEAT

From my personal history:

I was home, visiting my dad. He was in his late 80's and still driving. He drove up until two weeks of his death at age 93.

"Let's go to Richfield and get dinner," he said. "I'll buy. We'll go to JB's."

"Okay," I said. "Shall I drive?"

"Nah. I'll drive."

I shuddered just a bit, and reluctantly got in the car. I'd driven with Daddy before, recently. He drove at a reasonable speed. His eyesight was good. His reflexes seemed to be good, too. There was just something--I can't put my finger on it, but I was a bit uneasy when he drove.

When we got to Richfield I said, "Dad, go up a block where there is a stop light and then you can turn left and come back down to JB's."

"Nah, I always go this way."

So, we sat at a stop sign, waiting to cross Main Street. We sat a long time.

"Just turn right, Dad, and go up to the light."

"I always go this way," he said.

We waited some more. The traffic on Main Street was pretty heavy.

"Go up to the light, Dad. I don't see a break in the traffic, we could sit here all night."

Just then he floored the gas pedal and we took off. My head made an imprint in the head rest. I could see a car, coming right at us. I was in the "death seat." I saw the whites of the driver's eyes and a panicked look as he put on the brakes." Luckily, his reflexes were good too.

We crossed the street, unharmed.

"Daddy," I said, when I could speak again. "There was a car coming. We could have been hit."

"I was tired of waiting," he said.

HE WAS TIRED OF WAITING!? Oh, my.

People came to know God that day. Me, for sure, and probably the driver of the oncoming car. Maybe that was Daddy's purpose all along. Maybe dinner was just a bonus.

THE CLOWN CAR

This is my cute little car. I love it, I really do but it has a sense of humor and is a real jokster. It has been on loan to Lord Bumhampton and Nurse Giggleswitch for a couple of years and so I almost forgot what a funny little car it is. For instance, it looks powerful, doesn't it? It will climb mountain roads that other cars tremble at, but it takes four days to go from zero to sixty. And then you have to be going down hill for about four hundred miles.

It has had three--at least--new ignitions installed as it gets in a snit and grits it's gears and when the key is inserted it ignores it. It won't even let the key turn.

We haven't been able to open the trunk for about three years. It feels like a child stuck a tiny little rock into the key slot but you never know. The Trickster car might just have turned the tumblers all by itself.

And the door locks? That's its favorite joke. You are supposed to be able to lock either the drivers side door or the passenger side door and...zzzing, all the doors lock instantly. Not so. The drivers side door locks only that door. The passenger side sometimes locks them all, sometimes unlocks them all but sometimes only itself. Unless you slam the door so hard that people in houses two blocks away report earthquakes. Then, sometimes it locks everything.

The other day I was doing the routine:

• Lock the back door, manually.
• Close the drivers door and lock it with a key.
• Walk to the passenger door.
• Lock the back door, manually.
• Close the passenger door and lock it with a key. Everything should be fine.

Zzing--lock. Then Zzing, zzing, zzing. The doors, ALL OF THEM, unlocked, locked and unlocked. I locked that door again, thinking okay, it's going to lock everything again. Not so. Only the passenger door locked, leaving all the other doors unlocked.

• So, I locked the back door, manually.
• Closed the passenger door, locked it.
• Walked to the drivers side, opened the door, locked the back door, manually.
• Closed the door and locked it with the key.

Everything locked tight. I smiled. Turned to go and "Zzing, zzing, zzing, zzing, zzing...I lost count of how many times EVERY BLOOMIN' DOOR LOCKED AND UNLOCKED and in the end everything was unlocked. The key wasn't anywhere near the door and neither was I.

And so it goes, the cute little red clown car. We have a affair of tolerance going on. It gives me much amusement and I restrain driving it off a cliff and jumping out just before it goes over the edge. But I talk about doing it when I'm driving just to give it a thrill.

PS The car's antics now explain Lord Bumhampton's recent facial twitch. I'm beginning to feel a twitch coming on, too.

THE LENGTHS SOME MEN WILL GO TO TO CLEAN THE GARAGE

First he opens the garage and plies family with treasures.This is one of the SEVENTEEN trunks Phil bought one day because "they were a good deal." My Mother, the Bargain-Shopper-of-the-World was so proud! Now, eons later the is one of the last trunks to go live somewhere else.
In order to make his "stuff" more interesting he pulls out the vacuum...

...and vacuums the driveway. That's my husband, Mr. Domestic.

And the garage? It is one carload more empty! Maybe with a few more carloads the car can actually live there this winter. Now wouldn't that be a miracle?

Notice to family members--come one, come all, help clean the beastly garage. It's your duty. Unless, that is, your garage is full too.