I am inclined to believe, though it is ever a difficult thing to trace this sort of business to its very origin, that it all began when the headlight of my van decided to snuff it one night, thereby rendering my estimable vehicle into what both botanists and theologians alike have commonly termed a “padiddle.”  Now, being as it is the case that my van, by some great stroke of foresight on somebody’s part, came equipped with two headlights, mist likely in case of just such an eventuality as this, I failed to notice at first, the diminished luminosity of my totally fly ride.

            Unfortunately, this new event did not fail to escape the attention of on of the many policemen who hang about Jeff Davis Highway in the small hours of the morning, it being one of Richmond’s seamier underbellies (of which there are many), and since it is apparently the case that 89 Plymouths are all the rage in the international terrorism  scene these days, I found myself shortly promising to an officer of the law that I would replace the faulty lamp in short order, as well as hoping that he didn’t feel the need to ask me how many axes I presently had along with me (because let me tell you, no matter what line of work you happen to be in, the authorities rarely approve of any number in excess of three).

            Now, the great problem with changing headlights is that at night, when you need them, it’s far too dark to replace them properly, and in the daytime, the Sun is shining anyway and you can just forget about them altogether.  At any rate, it was the better part of a week before I got around to actually changing the offending bulb.  In the interim, I found myself to be constantly passing police cars, and was therefore presented with the continual choice of whether to allow them to see that I had in fact, as a result of raininess and constitutional ennui, not yet gotten around to changing the bulb, or to just turn on my highbeams and risk giving offense.  In any case, I eventually had a day off and was able to summon sufficient vitality to get the job done at last.

            Which brings me, of course, to the next event in my litany of hilarious sorrows, when the next night, shortly after stopping at one of Richmond’s many fine Wawa’s, I made most unpleasant discovery that my van had, either out of capriciousness or a mere yearning for a bit of excitement, decided to drive as if someone had nailed legos to all of its tires.  Now, there are, as regarding these sorts of things, two main kinds of people in the world.  The first are those who, when presented with a problem, step back, figure it through, and do not proceed with other things until finding a practical solution.  The second is comprised of they who, rightly figuring that it is already late and there are not, in fact any legos visibly attached to their wheels, decide to ignore the problem and hope that it goes away.  I myself have subscribed to this latter view for most of my adult life, and can attest to it’s efficacy in ameliorating nearly all ills.  Sure enough, I turned out to be right, for within another day the matter had resolved itself satisfactorily, as either my van had quickly wearied of the entire super offroad effect, or its mutant healing factor had kicked in.  I was now, however, in the unenviable position of being really low on gas, and in a distinct hurry.

            The discerning mind may well ask why I was in a hurry.  Well, it just so happens that I often find myself running late, much in the same vein as Osama bin Laden often finds himself to be living in a cave, and monkeys often find themselves to be addressing the vicissitudes of life by throwing poo at them.  Indeed, if Virginia and Late were ever to declare war upon each other, I would be sorely pressed to choose sides, since both make an impressive claim for being my natural and native state.  To make matters worse, the gas gauge with which my van came equipped has always held the view that in our increasingly precision-obsessed world, it would be a breath of fresh air for it to merely tell me, whether I had more or less than half a tank on hand at any given moment.  At the particular given moment in question however, less than half a tank seemed to be in vogue, and since every time I took a corner the low fuel light would flash menacingly at me, I ever so carefully drove the approximately twenty miles between my job and the nearest gas station, arriving with that turns out to have been enough gas to easily carry me another 500 feet or so.

            I departed from the gas station then, in high spirits, and remained blissfully unaware that a soda had rolled itself beneath one of the back seats, quite possibly in an attempt to avoid being quaffed.  Which was all well and good save for the fact that the combined effect of gravity and a really sharp offramp caused a biggish piece of lumber I had in the back to come crashing down upon it.  I, of course, did not know this at the time, being simply sensible that there had been a large thunk, followed by a hissing sort of a detonation, like a mortar hitting a laundry hamper full of snakes, and the sudden realization that the contents of my van, including myself, were now very damp, and slightly carbonated.

            The good news, as of course there always is, is that this explosion seems to have been taken by my van as a sort of disciplinary act on my part, and as a result, no further mischief seems to be afoot, automotively speaking.  Though of course, in the words of Princess Anastasia, one never knows.