The Garden of the Blind

My car is enjoying its last days. We're planning to replace her soon, but in the meantime, we've been taking a few moments to foil double parkers. Today at lunch, I found an almost empty space that contained the left tires of a truck who's driver probably thought that he was winning a free double space for the cost of people thinking that he was a bad parker. He didn't count on my little golf cart which fit perfectly into the middle of the space, leaving him several inches on the driver's side of his truck.

When I got back to my car, I didn't find any dings on my car (I think that everyone looks at my car and realizes that they'll be worse off if they try to hit it with their doors), but I did find a note on my windshield. It had a slightly perplexing smiley face and the last word was a little garbled, but the rest of the note read, "Thanks for parking so close--you Mother..."

This would be a precious memory, but it gets better. My nephew loves emergency vehicles and has recently decided that he can say "firetruck" more efficiently than the rest of us (he says it loudly...and often). Well, before I went into the restaurant, I checked the license plate of the truck (which is odd, since I have never done so before) and noticed that it was one of those plates with a fire department symbol on it.

And the story doesn't even end there. Tonight I got a call from the Professional Firefighter's Association asking for money. The caller had a tough time of it because I started laughing as soon as I heard who he was. I didn't give him any money, but at least I didn't tell him to firetruck off.