SHINY WHEELS BE ROLLIN'

SHINY WHEELS BE ROLLIN’

I am not fussy about what type of conveyance I drive. Ultimately they are just a means to get from A to B. At one point, early in my driving career, I even drove a 1956 Chevy with a red hood and a green fender, the rest of the body was white. Transportation... I had learned to gauge my speed by how fast the pavement was speeding past the floor of my car. I could park anywhere so that I wouldn’t have to use reverse gear. It takes a lot of careful planning, but it can be done. Reverse would stick and no one wants to crawl under a car with a pair of pliers in their panty hose. (Panty hose, that dates me doesn’t it, been around so long I can remember ruining pairs climbing trees for a college botany class.) I relate all of this to describe my usual indifference to traveling apparatus.

This prologue does not prepare you or me for the horror I faced when I came out of my back door one day last week and discovered my right front tire had lost its hubcap. There in front of my eyes was an ominous dark place where the dull chrome should be shining. Dull because we are in a drought and at one time no car wash was open here in town. Perhaps this dullness is something I can fix if we get some rain. I digress. Finding this was as if the abyss of chaos had opened just outside my garage door, swallowed my driveway, and threatened to take me down to the depths. How could the car roll with three chrome wheels and one blighted one? Was it even possible, maybe it wouldn’t start!

So I found myself in the auto parts place. I began by asking the clerk if I could order the proper one for the make and model of the car I am driving. The short answer to this innocent question is “no!” Have to go through a dealer to even consider ordering this part. Well, okay, moving along, no dealer in town. I confronted the display of possible rims. Wow! Glorious! What a shiny assortment of dazzling possibilities! I understand the “need” now to make an individual statement about your “personal” vehicle. The wheel possibilities are amazing. Would I want spinners, typhoon IIs? Maybe something to hang from my rear view mirror?  Fuzzy Dice? Plastic Leis?  No bobble head dog… driving a hatch back. I could really make a statement. But could not bring myself to consider the bright leopard seat covers for my economy subcompact.

I will admit that I could possibly be entering my second childhood. Since I just went for utility the first time around, I can’t guarantee that I won’t do something different this time. The goal for my second childhood will be having more fun. Not drinking or drugs fun, but really making a study of the absurdities of my life, and bringing them to your attention. My daughter told my son that she thought I just wanted to convert my red subcompact into something like the batmobile. To which I replied, “Don’t be silly you can’t get hubcaps with a bat symbol in the center of them, I looked.”