“N” Doesn’t Mean “P” and The Latest Ideas In Swim Wear. A Day With The Locals.

People are the most interesting subjects to watch. Truly fascinating, some of the more colorful characters live in the same wide spot in the road as me. Scary to think we’d have anything in common, let alone our choice of home town. I hope the similarities stop there, because there are some mighty interesting dudes around these parts. Last weekend, Joan I  returned after Oliver’s grooming and our little visit to the gun range. Zigging this way and zagging that back to Winterpast, we were slowly approaching our last sharp right turn. To our left was the most interesting sight. The houses on that side of the street sit high above the road with extremely steep driveways. At the bottom of their steep properties, there runs a fairly deep drainage ditch. With frequent flash floods throughout the year, the ditches help prevent flooding. Wedged into the bottom of the ditch was a newish SUV, grey in color. Pointing hood up, bumper down, it seemed pretty obvious what’d happened. The car had rolled off the top of the hill, slamming down and coming to a violent stop in the ditch. Next to the car stood a heavily tattooed 20-something boy with a man-bun. This short clad boy was on the phone to the man of the house, his dad. At 20 years of age, every one of our five children were no longer boys and girls, but adulting and doing quite well at it. Today, things are different. Distraught and confused, he was deep in a conversation we overheard, now that our windows were open as we drove past him at a snails pace. “Daaaaaahhhhhhhhdddd, what do you want me to do? Tell me right now! WHAT DO I DO????” There are times in life that one must look to the heavens with a grateful “Thank-You” that some problems are not ours. This falls into that category. His Daaaaahhhhhhhhdddd deserved a very nice Father’s Day, but something tells me this kid has lots more grief to give before he launches. Perhaps a lesson about the different gears in a transmission and what the “N” represents might be in order. Because, most likely, he left the car in “N” instead of “P”, leaving him in this conundrum. No doubt, he’d need to look that word up on his phone, not owning his own Funk and Wagnalls. It appeared the car was driven to the top of the hill. Perhaps still in neutral, the car rolled off the hill and slammed into the ditch. By this time, we’d used up our neighborly amount of time staring at the wreckage, so we made our right turn and proceeded home. Without a tow truck at the ready, we could be of no help to this poor lost boy. Later that evening, I felt like an ice cream sandwich from the local gas station. Jumping in the car, we raced to the Chill and Grill Jiffy Stop off 85B. It was especially busy for an early evening, but it was the group of friends parked just outside the front door that caught our eye. They were three together, with one car that didn’t run. One man, two girls and a pair of jumper cables. It was obvious from the moment we arrived who was in charge. SHE took command of the entire situation, calm, cool, and collected while wielding her jumper cables. Knowing where to connect the positive and negative charges, SHE was familiar with the workings of a battery. Another friend pulled in with a donor car and the two hoods were placed in the up position. Now they were four, one car running, one not. The young woman in command, also was in control of all eyeballs at the station. I think people were going back to fill gas a second time just to sneak a peak. I, already being in the store by the ice cream freezer next to the window, had a front row view. It took him longer than normal to make my ice cream selection. You see, this woman was wearing swim wear, not of the normal type. For the longest time, swim wear has been getting skimpier and skimpier. In my childhood, it was forbidden for women to show their naval in movies. As the years passed, it didn’t seem anything could get smaller than the Brazilian thong string bikini. But, our “Cable-ette” with her mechanical knowledge had gone one step further. Her bathing suit covered the front only. Just tiny strips of torn fabric went across the lower back. Plenty of space in between them. Nothing else. The front was torn strips that strategically covered important areas. This was her bathing suit. A vertical maze of torn fabric that obscured nothing from the rear, including the rear in its entirety. Like a torn t-shirt retrieved from a lawn mower accident, this suit covered very little, quite possibly having been designed by Edward Scissorhands. Oh My. She WAS in charge of the jumper cables. She certainly knew what to do with them. After two such entertaining episodes, I realize that trips out to various parking lots in my little town are in order. Forget evening television shows that I used to find amusing. My town is far more interesting than those. These are richly diverse and outlandish people that dance to tunes I’m unfamiliar with. I plan to investigate this new type of bathing suit, although I prefer a little more modest version when hot tubbing. These days, I continue to check the “P” for Park and set the brake before exiting my vehicle. Things work out a little better that way. Having no DAAAAHHHHDDDD to call for answers, avoiding the problem in the first place seems prudent. Happy People Watching.