Memory Lane

Do you remember your first car?

I do.

Remember your friends' first cars? Unless you and your friends grew up with a lot more money than I did, somewhere in that pack of first and second cars there was a vehicle, maybe more than one, that was sporting some repairs that were... well, let's just say they were more economical than aesthetically pleasing.

Less expensive, and even less fashionable.

Ugly, but cheap.

Like I said, maybe it was your car, maybe it belonged to someone you knew.

A fender picked up from the junkyard that was, though a perfect and undented replacement for the crumpled original, entirely the wrong color.

Hubcaps that did not match, or possibly weren't there at all.

A broken window replaced temporarily (all these repairs were intended to be temporary, it just didn't work out that way!) with a garbage bag, the loosely fitting plastic ruffling and snapping wildly, like a flag in a high wind, as you drove down the street.

A trunk, or in some cases an actual door held closed (and sometimes on) with a rope.

This used to be all high-school stuff, for the most part. Maybe into college. But we always assumed that as we got older this stuff would be less likely to happen.

Not so. Not with this economy.

In the past few years I've had a ruffling, snapping window. Sheet plastic rather than a bag, but plastic is plastic. I've seen people, adults, not kids, driving along with a rope for a trunk-lock, or clear packing tape holding together a shattered headlight lens. It reminds me of my youth.

And so, this morning when I went to work I was not exactly surprised to see what I saw. It made me laugh, I can tell you that. What I saw was this:

I know what's caught your eye. That black stuff around the back-up light on the back of that mail truck. Is that what you think it is?

Let's take a closer look.
















Yup. It's exactly what you thought it was. It's a nice thick layer of sweet, black electrical tape. It just happens to be the only thing holding that back-up light (the red one with the white square in the center) to the truck. Without that high-tech tape that light would be hanging out on the wiring, just dangling loose and whacking against the back of the truck every time it drove over a bump.

That, my friends, is a member of the motor pool of the largest (employee-wise) business in the world, and it's driving around with a mickey-moused repair job worthy of every kid in the world who just got his license and just has to drive, no matter what his car looks like!

Takes me right back to High-School.

Ah, nostalgia!

Talk to you later!