Last night at about 11:30 PM Amy (my wife) asked me to go to the store and pick up some medicine for Abby (my daughter).  She is teething and was having a hard time sleeping.   I got down to the kitchen and realized that I had not hung up my keys where they go, and instead of going back upstairs to get them, I grabbed the spare set hanging on the key rack.   Back at the truck after buying the Children’s Tylenol, I inserted the key into the door to unlock it.  Usually I click the button on the little fob, but the spare key doesn’t have one.   As I twisted the key in the lock I set off the car alarm.   The only way I know to turn off the alarm is to push the unlock button on the fob.   But the fob was at home.    I frantically tried everything I could think of, I looked for the fuse to the horn in the fuse case, I pushed every switch, and I tried to start the car.  Nothing would work.   As I was looking a second time at the lid to the fuse case, trying to find a fuse I could pull, a flashlight shown on me.  Turning around I noticed one of Gilbert’s finest standing a few feet away, one hand resting on his holstered pistol, the other holding a flashlight.   I asked him if he had any ideas how to turn off the car alarm.   He paused for a long couple of seconds, probably deciding if I was a stupid thief or a clueless Nissan owner.   Finally he said “No”.   After watching me for a long 2-3 minutes I explained to him that I only knew how to turn it off with the fob thing, but that it was at home.  He took my license and registration to make sure it really was my truck and then offered me a ride home.   The back seat of a police car is never a comfortable place to be.  But the officer was nice.  He even offered to handcuff me and then knock on the door and tell my wife that I had been arrested.   I declined that offer; it was enough humiliation to have been sitting for 10 minutes in a car that won’t stop honking in the middle of a parking lot in the middle of the night.   He gave me a ride back to the store and I finally was able to start my truck and go home.

Fast-forward ten hours to this morning.   I am in a good mood, scanning the channels to catch the latest indictment news from Washington, racing down the freeway with the windows down, and enjoying the perfect Arizona weather.  As I near my exit (3^Rd Street HOV exit on I-10) I switch to the oldies station which was playing “Age of Destruction” by Barry McGuire        .  I instantly started singing along. Now this song is not something for the gentle singing.  It is a song of anger and protest.  The only way I know to sing along to this song is a full on, take this protest scream.   Racing up the off ramp, windows down I stop at the light at the end of the ramp. 

My turn is to the right.  I am still singing as I look to the left to see if I can turn.  Right as I do so I am singing “Think of all the hate there is in Red China, then look around to Selma Alabama”.   At about “Selma” I realize that there is this woman in the lane next to me on a big Harley-Davidson motorcycle, wearing a white shirt, blue jeans and strawberry blonde hair coming out from beneath her helmet.  This mental image I have of her will be in my mind for a long time.  She is looking right at me and laughing and shaking her head as if to say “This is the most pathetic sight I have seen in a long time”.   I give her a sheepish nod, certainly turning bright red and racing away as quickly as possible.  The last words of the song that I heard before switching to NPR were “The pride and disgrace”…….