Another Benefit Is the Truck Didn't Have a Pissing Calvin in the Back Window

The truck was on fire and we were driving past it at a speed so low, the speedometer needle never saw the numbers above zero. We had been driving past the truck for a long time, as long as I could remember. There had never been a time when we weren’t driving past that truck. Whole civilizations began, thrived, and collapsed back into chaos while we drove past the burning truck.

Time goes slowly in a minivan.

Kathryn, a girl who was born with too many words inside her, spent the time imagining reasons for the burning truck. By the time we had drawn even with it, she had voiced dozens, none of them encumbered by breath or punctuation. In each of these scenarios, the fire was always the result of a crying child.

“Maybe the driver was driving and his baby was crying and crying and crying so he looked in his pocket and all he had was a box of matches so he opened it and dumped all the matches out and then he gave the box to the baby so the baby would stop crying but way down in the bottom of the box where he couldn’t see it there was one little bitty match left and the baby found it that’s why the car is on fire. Or maybe..."

It was a pickup truck, but Kathryn called it a car. A lack of experience recognizing pickup trucks is just one of the benefits of living in New Jersey.

Kathryn's little sisters were less than appreciative of any of her explanations, and had spent the last forever asking why, why daddy, why was the car burning? My children clearly do not watch enough TV. On TV cars burn all the time. American children should look at burning cars with no more interest than they would bikini-clad women surrounding a man drinking light beer. And this truck wasn't just on fire, it was totally engulfed in the flames. The metal itself seemed to be burning. Flames swirled in tornadoes and rose out the shattered windows. It would have looked right at home in any number of TV shows. About crying children.

"...his baby was crying and crying and crying and the only thing that would stop it was one song so the driver kept playing the song over and over and over and the CD player got so hot it exploded and that's why the car is on fire. Or maybe..."

The four of us were on our way back from the airport where we had just dropped off my wife to catch a flight to Boston for business. I don't know why my wife goes to these places. She edits dictionaries. Had a new use for the word "wicked" had been discovered?

"Control, we have an report of a South Shore resident saying, 'wicked nippy'."

"Roger that. Is that in our dictionary?"

"No, ma'am. We have wicked cold, wicked freezing, and wicked frigid."

"Send Sharon."

Seven lanes of traffic had been blocked off for the burning truck. At the rate we were going, we wouldn't make it home for dinner. I wasn't too worried. We could have parked right there and dined happily on our minivan's supply of free-range Cheerios. We could have pulled to the side, snacked on Cheerios, and watched the truck burn.

Would have been just like TV.

Comments

[Tricia]

Free range cheerios. Haha.

[Kritter Krit]

"Send Sharon."

I horked a tic-tac on my keyboard. Oh my gosh, you ROCK.

This probably isn't the way it's supposed to work. As your competition (not really, since you're leaving me in the dust like a little greasy smear on the highway), I'm probably not supposed to become addicted to your every word and add you to my blogroll.

But, you know, I'm okay with that.

[kaitlyn]

You have some serious writing skills. I wish I could do half as much as you do with words. Off to change my vote today...

[loren]

I misunderstood "wicked nippy" at first. Thanks for putting it into context, otherwise I'd be envisioning twisted red nipples all night.

BTW, I have free range cheerios under my couch. Those are the best ones!

[Fawn]

Kathryn would have knocked the socks off my Grade 4 Gifted Class teacher in the brainstorming and creative thinking exercises.

That's two days in a row of pure blogging platinum. (Gold didn't seem good enough. Wait, what's better than platinum?)

[Chris]

LOL @ Kathryn's reasons for the fire. Did she once play with a match box? Did you tell her that if you played the song 1 more time the radio would blow up? Or is she just creative like her daddy?

[Anne Prince]

I am suspecting that Sharon is adding plenty of new words for you!

[Mary Ellen]

You are wicked funny. I'm pretty sure that you will find that phrase in the Maine edition of the dictionary. (Sometimes it's listed as "wicked friggin' funny."

[Allison]

So funny - what a great post. Reading this was a good way to start out a Friday morning - thanks.

By the way, as a former ex-New Englander (and a hopeful future New England resident), I understood "wicked nippy" immediately. I actually laughed out loud at that one.

[rosie]

send sharon...ha! i also laughed out loud at the wicked nippy. i guess living in boston for 5 years does that to you.

[The Mom]

Have I mentioned that I'm going to Atlanta at the end of this month? A new type of iced tea has been identified and must be named.

[Kate]

Were you on the turnpike? Every time I am on the turnpike, I see a burning vehicle. I think they do that shit on purpose to remind you that you are in New Jersey. Wicked pissah.

[Chickenpig]

Frickin' hilarious!!!!!

We've got enough free range goldfish to feed an army in our van. An army of starving Huns!

[Scott]

Kathryn's second theory isn't really all that ridiculous; I (a full grown 30-something-year-old man) have had the same fears. My almost-two-year-old insists I repeat the same song on his CD player all night when he goes to bed (before Thanksgiving it was "Hush Little Baby", now it's "Row, Row, Row Your Boat")

So we put the CD on at bedtime, and it plays "Row, Row" all through the night. Sometimes in the morning rush to get the boy to daycare and my wife and I to work, we forget to turn it off. When we get home at night, it's still playing. (Might as well keep it on, it's almost bedtime already!).

The point is, listening to just 15 minutes of "Row, Row" in full harmony and a three part round is enough to make anyone want to explode. But our cheap off-brand $12 CD player from National Wholesale Liquidators has happily cranked out the tune for 72 straight hours just fine.

If Kathryn is right, one day I'll come home to a blazing inferno where my house used to be. And the Looky, Daddy family minivan will drive by and speculate what happened.

Or maybe...

[MissMarie]

The Mom - down south its 'sweet tea'.

I learned my lesson when I moved from New England, even though I only went down about.... 5 states. They look at you like you have 8 heads when you say "i'd like an iced tea." Then when you try and elaborate so they understand, they go.... "oh, [long pause, while still inspecting your 8 heads] you want sweet tea. You must be a yankee huh?"

That stuff about them always being nice is crap. I can probably find nicer people in NYC. hmpf.

[Miss Britt]

So? WHY was the truck on fire??

[Brian]

Kritter Krit, don't think for a minute I'm falling for that. You're going to be all, "Hey, friend, come over here," and then I'm going to wake up two days later in Mexico with an evil headache, no passport or money, and my blog will have been renamed "Pickles: The Heartwarming Journey of a Floppy-Eared Rabbit."

I learned that lesson last year.

(And thanks!)

[~annie]

Now I know why there are so many trucks down here in Virginia. None of them ever catch on fire. And that's because they transport their crying children in the bed of the truck.

[Michael]

Wow, what a great morning to discover your blog, to which a friend of mine linked on Facebook.

My partner kept asking me why I was laughing so hard over my cereal, but I'm keeping you all for myself. :)

[niksmom]

Just sittin' & grinnin' at this one. :-D

[You can call me, 'Sir']

I don't mean to sound callous or selfish or selfishly callous, but if you win this so-called "weblog award", what's in it for those of us doing the heavy lifting involved in voting for you?

[You can call me, 'Sir']

And don't say 'The pleasure of continuing to read your drivel'. Also, don't say 'Nothing'.

[rachel]

first off... i have my own stash of 'free-range' cheerios a la minivan so i laughed bucketloads on that one.

second... your photo up top is SOOOO incredibly disturbing! i get it, but still, disturbing.

[Taado]

That's it! I've been searching for that phrase for a year now, and you have so loquaciously provided it: "born with too many words." My just-barely three year old hypothesized for 20 minutes about why a daddy and son were waiting at the bus stop with (of all unlikely things) a back pack. At least she thought they were father/son, it might also have been his uncle, or a nice neighbor man, or maybe it was a stranger, in which case we should pull over and see if he needs help. On the other hand, it might be a police man who isn't dressed right and is taking him home to his big brother. Or maybe the brother left the mysterious backpack at home, and they're taking it to him at school, but then they're getting on the wrong kind of bus . . . .

Oh yes, born with too many words . . . some days I think it would be easier if she'd been born with too many arms.

[Tammy]

But it WAS "wicked nippy" this morning. Sorry to rile up all the dictionary people.