THE HORN BLOWS...

Trixie took me shopping for a new truck even though I did not want to buy a new truck.  I am one of those people who fall in love with the vehicle that they drive over time.  I have always driven a truck.  The truck I was driving was fine with me.  It only had three hundred thousand miles on it.  Some of the lights worked.  Every dent and scratch in it had a story.  That truck was a book.  It would not start on cold mornings, but it was a clutch and I could push start it if I parked on hill.  On those mornings I wished there was a hill near where I lived, that is true, but that truck fit me.  And I fit that truck.  Trixie told me she thought I should get a new one.  She said I deserved better, that I had earned a new truck.  

     I found out later that she took me shopping for a new truck because the community association towed my old truck to a junk yard earlier that day.  They thought it was abandoned. Savages.  It all worked out ok, though.  As soon as I sat in the seat of the new truck she picked out for me, it fit like a glove.  We bought it that night.  I am a truck whore.  What more can I say, really?

     When I was young, it was a very, very long time ago.  I was handsome, fit, and I was an angry driver.  My horn usually needed to be replaced before my brakes did.  The gas pedal was either on or off.  I was the same way then too. I was either on or I was off.  And when I was off, I was off the charts.  It was seldom that I prayed back then.  The only prayer I would ever say were for people to get out of my way.  But that was then.  This is now.  Now, I am no longer handsome, fit, or an angry driver.  The years removed the handsome.  The pizzas removed the fit. The prayer removed the anger.

     One evening, on the way home from work, anger staged a serious comeback.  That evening, the curtain raised and there it was, anger, the star of the show.  I had seen this show before.  It never had a happy ending.  When I became angry, things became dynamic very quickly. Usually objects that were never meant to fly, flew, and things thought to be unbreakable, broke.  Lunatic would be the word that would describe me best.

     The scene opened when I left work late one evening.  I was on my way home to pick up Trixie, Sissy and Sugar to do something that was so important at the time, that I forget what it was now.  It never occurred to me that when I got there, regardless of the time, that my girls would not be ready.  They were never ready.  None of that mattered, though.  I had a horn and I was going to use it.  If the light turned red, I honked the horn.  If I was in the wrong lane, I honked the horn.  I would honk at police cars with complete disregard.  My horn honking did nothing to resolve any of these situations.

     Honking did not speed up my trip.  It did not get me home in time to sit in the driveway and wait for the girls, who would not be ready no matter what time I got there.  None of that mattered.  I was in the lunatic mine shaft with a piano on my back.  I didn’t snap out of it until I honked at a refined old woman, who looked to be over one hundred years old, on the shoulder at a red light.  She snapped me out of it when she gave give me a wrinkled old crooked finger.  It took me until I got home and pulled into the driveway to settle down. 

     Of course, no one was waiting, no one was ready.  We would be late and that was ok at least, because it was not my fault.  Before I got out of the truck though, after realizing that I had lapsed into insanity one more time, I said a quick prayer. “God, please help me stop honking the horn at everyone and everything.  Amen.”  That is how I pray these days.  It works for me.  So I don’t stop.  I never stop praying.  I keep it simple.  

     I felt much better about myself right away as I walked into the house.  

     “What are you doing home so early?”  Trixie said. 

     “Early?” I said, “We had to leave ten minutes ago!”

     “Oh!  I forgot to tell you.  We are going tomorrow, not today.  Sorry honey.”

     Sometimes it is great to come home from work.  Other times, not so much.  I was confused so I watched a football game.  When I am confused I watch football.  I am an expert at football now. 

      Then I went to bed.  It was later than I usually go to bed so I was asleep in a few minutes. 

     And I was sleeping like a baby.  In my house when you find yourself sleeping like a baby, it is usually best to brace yourself.  I remember bracing myself just in the nick of time.  I heard Sugar running through the house, toward our bedroom, long before she burst through the door.  She was in a panic. 

     “Daddyboy, get up!  Get Up! Hurry! Your alarm is going off!”, she said.

     “My alarm is not going off Sugar.”

     “Yes it is!”

     “Sugar, I am looking at the clock right now it says 3:34.”

     “Not that alarm!  Your Truck alarm!  Someone is breaking into to your truck!”  

     I bolted out of bed and reached for my pants.  Trixie said, “No!  Just go!  Here take this!” and she handed me a broom.  It never crossed my mind that I was headed out the door to confront bold faced criminals armed with only a broom.   Nor did it occur to me that I was wearing only my old white underwear.  Having packed on twenty five pounds of winter weight, my underwear was tighter than shrink wrap.  I was not too worried about shrinkage at that moment, but I had also overlooked the fact that it was six degrees out that night.  The men will know what I am talking about.   Who am I kidding here?   The women will know too.  

     Anyway, I raced through the house toward the back door. 

     “Run Daddyboy Run!”  Sugar said.

     “I am running Sugar!” I wheezed back at her.

     I could hear the horn to the truck now.  Honking again and again.  The truck alarm was indeed going off.  Sugar had taken to pushing me from behind to try to improve my speed.  Trixie was right behind her. 

     “We’re going to teach these savages a lesson!” I said.

     “We’re right behind you Daddyboy!” they said as I went through the door.  

     I saw the truck.  The lights were flashing; the horn was honking.  It was deafening.  As loud as it was, I could still hear the girls shut the door behind me and lock the dead bolt.  I was on my own, as usual.

     As I made my way to my truck, I started hopping.  It was not a fighting strategy that had me hopping.  I was not hopping on purpose.  It was my bare feet on the six degree sidewalk that had me hopping and I was hopping like a madman.  Actually I was hopping like a three hundred pound, fifty year old man in skintight underwear with a broom in his hand.  In my mind, though, I thought I looked like a David Beckham commercial.

     When I had finally made it the truck I found that there was no one there.  The lights continued to flash and the horn continued to honk, but I could see no signs of a break in on my truck.  False alarm. I looked down at my feet to make sure that none of my toes had broken off.  It dawned on me then that I did not have the keys to my truck so that I could reset the alarm.  I yelled back to Trixie, “Bring me the keys!” 

     She unlocked the door, came out and heaved them to me from the porch.  They landed in the holly bush. 

     It didn’t really matter though, because the horn started to die.  It went from honking, to sounding like a goose, to sounding like a dying goose, to sounding like a dead goose, in less than a minute.  The lights stopped flashing too.  It was silent for the first time in a few minutes.  

     In the silence I heard someone laugh behind me.  I turned to see Tom and Mary, our next door neighbors, watching on their porch.  Then I saw Bob and Julie and their four kids watching from the porch across the street.  Their neighbors, Lorie and John, and their black lab, Blue, were watching from their porch.  As I looked around me, all of our neighbors had come out to watch me do battle with the truck thieves.  None of them were in their underwear. 

     It was right about that point that I heard Bob say to Julie, “Get the kids in the house Julie; they don’t need to be seeing Tony in his underwear.”  Until I heard Bob say that, I had forgotten that I was wearing nothing but my underwear.  I smiled at them and waved.  What else was there to do really? 

     To make matters worse, it was six degrees out.  When you are a man, standing outside in your underwear, and it is six degrees out, there is nothing, believe me, nothing that you can be proud of.  It is biologically impossible.  I said to everyone, “The excitement is over folks, back to bed.”     

     I heard my neighbor’s doors closing, one by one, as I hopped back to the house.  I would have taken what was left of my pride with me back into the house, but there was none left.  

     When I came back in, I said, “Boy that was embarrassing.”

     “I know” Sugar said, “I will be a laughing stock at school tomorrow.” And she stomped off to bed.  Trixie went back to bed too.  I tried to get some blood back into my feet by hopping into the shower.  I was already in my underwear, so I had that going for me.  

     In the shower it occurred to me what I had prayed for earlier that evening.  I started laughing.  I don’t know how prayer works, but I do know it does.  I have learned to be careful about what I pray for too, because prayer works.  And if the answer to a prayer involves a practical joke, that is all the better.  I love a good laugh, even at my own expense.  I sent up a prayer of thanks.  “Thanks for dealing with my horn honking anger, thanks for restoring my humility, and thanks for answering my prayer with the bonus of a little humor.”

     That is all.