Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Citizen's Arrest! Citizen's Arrest! Sort of.

The other day I had visions of Gomer Pyle screaming, "Citizen's Arrest! Citizen's Arrest!" at me while I was driving the wife and kids down the road in the family truckster. As I looked into the driver's side rear view mirror (our real rear view mirror fell off the window a few weeks ago and I've yet to fix it), I noticed a snappy white SUV pulling up on my bumper and waving at me to pull over. Of course, I thought of all kinds of reasons why I shouldn't let a complete stranger pull me over, but I did it anyway. Usually, when other drivers are upset with you, they just give you the old "one-finger salute" (also referenced in this blog as the "you're number one!" gesture). So, I figured that there was probably something wrong with my van or that I might have been dragging a dog on a leash for the last several miles (that's my second reference to the movie Vacation). This feller and I would resort to some manly talk about vehicles, oil, grease, tools or some other masculine subject while the women-folk and kids stayed in the trucksters.

WRONG!

As soon as I reached for the door handle, I figured out WHY he was waving me over. For the past few days, there was something sitting on the bumper of the mini-van. Every time I looked at it, I just assumed that one of the kids would take care of it and surely we wouldn't drive off with it still there. Besides that, it would fall off somewhere and I could care less.

WRONG AGAIN!

As I was walking to the back of the car to meet this stranger at the bumper it seemed as if every step was in slow motion. I kept my head low and stared at the ground. I couldn't bear to make eye contact with this guy. I turned the corner at the back of the van and looked up at the bumper to see my hunch revealed. Still sitting--just as the kids left it--on the bumper of the van was a cute little pink bag with a red heart...











And inside that cute little pink bag with the red heart sat six little bouncy balls...










I waived off Mr. Pyle (although I was the one feeling like a "gomer" at this point) and told him I knew what it was and thanked him for pointing it out--we sure wouldn't want to lose all of those bouncy balls.

Even though it's not her fault, I've decided to blame this blow to my masculinity on Aunt Leah, the Bouncy Ball Fairy.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

It's hard to be a manly-man when you're driving around in a mini-van with a hot pink girly bag on the bumper.

Uvulapie said...

Those bouncy balls are probably top secret gubbermint mega gravity bouncy balls. Did you notice them being especially heavy?

Anonymous said...

I am oh so proud to be the bouncy ball fairy, even though I am starting to make many daddy's upset!! Bone is wondering why we have 16 bouncy balls. What he doesn't understand is that I can only shop at old navy if I buy Ellie 2 bouncy balls per visit, it's my survival so I can try on shirts that cost $1.98 each! At $.25 a pop, you can excect to see more bouncy balls appear in your Grand Voyager!!

BBF

Julia Phillips Smith said...

I agree with Sniz! But you did make a great blog post out of it.

Uvulapie said...

Glad to see you've brought the Amazing Spinning Baylee back... what is she now, in her early thirties? My, how time flies.

Big Doofus (Roger) said...

I never get tired of watching the Spinning Baylee. It's hypnotic. After looking at it for twenty minutes straight, I went out and chopped down seven trees in the neighborhood and built a log cabin. I can't explain it.

Anonymous said...

Aw, c'mon. We'll still be friends with you even if you DO like pink bags with little hearts on them ("Aunt Leah", or whoever you call your alter ego). Too funny.

Once, when we were driving home from having our truck worked on at the dealership, I had to dodge a death dart of sorts. A big ol' Paul Bunyon sized steel headed mallet (or whatever you men call that thingy) fell out from under Carl's truck as he drove down the road. And given that we lived 30 minutes from the dealer (country life'll do that to ya), we're still enjoying that mallet today
(they didn't want to pick it up or pay shipping; gee, wonder why?)
Blessings,
~Toni~

scott said...

I started staring at the Spinning Baylee and I think I lost track of time. Two hours flew by and I forgot where I was.

I woke up eating pistachios in Newark.

AGAIN.