I’ve just come in from dead-heading some flowers. I taught a math lesson on polygons and a penmanship lesson on the first and second principals of cursive writing. I am heading off to the gym in a little while where I am starting my own trend. This is the third week that I haven’t missed a week-day.
When I drive or even park somewhere, I draw a lot of attention to myself. I know what people are looking at when I climb out of my car with my service dog, but I wonder what on earth the other drivers are gawking at when I stop at an intersection.
Once in a while, a group of pedestrians will stop and point, smile and laugh out loud.
Yesterday, I left the gym, and at the first stop light while waiting for the other drivers to turn left on red, a policeman in a marked car was checking me out. Not, me, my car, I’m not that cool. The next intersection the same thing happened, then a third cop drove by me, I was anxious to get home, like home is a sort of base and whatever is going on will end when I open my front door.
I do not break traffic laws or any laws in general, I claim all of my income on my taxes and never turn left on a red light, much to the distain of the guy behind me who wanted a jump on the next light. I don’t murder, blackmail, shoplift, sell my prescription drugs, or aim guns at passers-by and don’t want to be pulled over and have to assert my innocence.
All paranoia and denial and proclamations of honesty aside, it occurred to me after I was safe in my chair in front of a rather graphic medical show that those officers were looking at me because of my grill ornament.
Several years ago, for Halloween, I bought an arm. It is a forearm of a man clothed in a white sleave. It has the ability to crawl along the floor wiggling its fingers. I bungee corded it to the grill on the front of my car and never took it off.
The arm still moves and looks like I ran over someone and the poor soul is still alive and caught up under the front of my car. Why I left it there is anyone’s guess and why I forget it is there is another thing altogether.
So, if you are on the streets in southwest Montana and you see an 89 T-bird with a man struggling to free himself, it is only me.
I need to post this and head off to the gym.