After striking a deal to privately sell one of our cars, we
faced the daunting task of cleaning it out.
It quickly sold without haggling – an indicator that it looked genuinely
good or it was too underpriced. In any
case, the real work was about to begin.
Inasmuch as we were still driving this car until it sold, we
desperately needed all the stuff inside.
All of it. All.
Keep in mind I was never a Boy Scout, whose motto is “Be
Prepared.” I am prepared, nonetheless.
The glove box, besides containing the owner’s manual,
dutifully held four-packs of matches, 27 gas receipts, an old lollipop, small
pad of paper, wad of dust, calculator, and an inkless pen. Allow me to explain this compendium of
survival gear. Matches and the receipts
could be used to start an emergency fire, the paper pad and pen would ideally
be used in case of an accident to exchange information, the calculator for
ciphering mileage. It seems the lollipop
was still pretty tasty, and the dust wad was merely a bonus find.
In the trunk, neatly tucked inside an old milk crate was a
small air compressor, yellow battery jumper, extra jug of oil, oil filter
wrench, three road flares, old CB radio, poncho, and a dull hatchet. Of course, if you play the ‘what doesn’t fit’
game, the hatchet would be the item of note.
It is there in case we needed to chop kindling for our previously-mentioned
emergency fire. The ‘dull’ part of the hatchet was not desirable.
Under the front seat was a folding umbrella, ice scraper,
squeegee, half-roll of paper towels, two petrified French fries, thirty-seven
cents in pennies and nickels and dimes, a pen with ink, a birthday card for my
sainted wife, and a used Styrofoam cup.
All this stuff makes perfect sense to me, even giving me relief to know
that I did buy her that birthday card!
And, speaking of my sainted wife, her biggest fault – and
she has many but, she doesn’t read this column so I can expand – is that she
collects paper napkins. Don’t
misunderstand, she does not have wall-after-wall covered with lighted shadow
boxes containing neatly displayed valuable paper napkins about which she can
explain their origin while bragging to friends and visitors. Rather, each time she visits a fast-food
restaurant, she gathers up somewhere in the neighborhood of eight napkins. Since we only use two each, quick ciphering
leaves you with four extra, unused napkins.
Frugally, she saves them for future use either as tissues or even
napkins. These extras are stuffed in map
slots on the doors, cup holders, and inside that elastic net thing on the back
of the front seats. I believe she possesses
some chipmunk genes.
But, also in those seat net things were maps. Maps of Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina,
South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Florida were located betwixt
the napkins.
It’s clear I try be prepared for most road problems but, I
became surprised myself when, after removing all this “emergency equipment”
from the car that it actually held all this gear and still had room for the
whole family. This may have been the
moment of epiphany when I realized we should be driving a moving van. And, that lollipop was still pretty tasty. We were prepared.
