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Last Edit October 5, 1998 My 22-year old is going on 6.My 17-year old is going on 40. I know this. They tell me. Often. The elder, not necessarily the wiser, has a Tacoma. 4-Wheel drive. Loaded. Brush protector underneath. Air horn. He is planning on the additions. Chrome running boards. Chrome bumper. Brush catcher for the front. Can also catch cars. He claims he can make LA in 6 hours. With two stops. It takes me 7 with three. I stay under 75. (In California we change tires at 55 mph. Houses run down streets at 65 mph.) He says 110 mph. I remind him you have no control at that speed. I tell him you might be unlucky and live. You could live and kill your passengers. He says he doesn't do it when he has passengers. I remind him he is an adult. I would prefer to have my children outlive me. Maybe the highway patrol needs Tacomas. Maybe his waiting to 18 to drive wasn't long enough. Maybe 30 would have been better. I hope he's bragging. Do the math. I think he is. I've driven that highway. Many times. He is employed (yes, someone actually pays him a salary) by a company that is so big it is building part of the city of San Jose. Literally. They've already added their own extension to a Bart line. Next comes a bridge. Levee. Maybe divert a river. More buildings. More jobs. $$$$$$$$ They have their own security. More than one street. He enjoys this. He also enjoys his truck. As in leaving a rubber stripe when departing the parking lot - a show for his brother. (His brother was not amused. I screamed for three blocks.) As in running around in construction dirt piles when conventional 4-wheeling is too far out of town. (It is, after all, fully 230 miles to a 4-wheeler beach.) Up and down, at all angles through the dirt piles. He describes this to me. He whomps down on a bridge from an almost 90-degree incline. Sees it unfinished. Runs more dirt piles. Fun. I remind him it is not a Hummer or Hum-Vee. It does not have a winch. He says it will. Soon. Already planned. His raise, not yet given, is already being mentally spent. He describes the black and white that stopped him for trespass. He flashes his company badge. Pleads innocent. (Or ignorant.) They ponder this. They think about calling his boss. He tells them that his boss will be upset. At being woke up. They can't ticket him. No one has complained. He knows this. It's at this point in his narrative that I ask how old he is. "Six," he says. Several times. I agree. It's the same smirky smile I recorded on Polaroid when he was 6 months old. Devil child. (His supervisor doesn't want to know. Not really. Quirky Front-Liners are hard to find. They are tolerated. Programmer gurus are perky. Free soda. Free coffee. Toys. But they did tell him to stop rollerbladeing around the office. Especially when climbing stairs. Or office partitions. No more hockey pucks in the hallway. The Frisbees can stay, however. There would be mutiny.) He says that two days after this adventure, he heard a funny sound when he parked his truck. He looked under the truck. There was a tree. Trapped. I guess that's why he wants a brush-catcher. |
Copyright 1998 Donnamaie E. White. email to dewhite@nospam_best.com