Car Juggling

It all started the other night……. Our new “neighbors” from Missouri/Arkansas/North Carolina……..were over for dinner. We drank way too much wine and ate way too much garlic……..One thing lead to another as these things always do…and Cherie found herself stealing the keys to Guy-Victor's truck so that we could run down to the club house here in the neighborhood and “steal” some old dead bamboo that the caretaker had cut down and thrown by the curb for trash pick up. As the Mission Impossible theme played in our heads…..We set off in her husband's “stolen” truck armed with only a flashlight, a pair of kitchen shears, and an old margarita bucket with a half an inch of water in the bottom. Our plan……get to the club house….pick up the bamboo stalks… (10 feet tall). Throw them quietly into the back of the truck and hall ass. We got to the clubhouse, it was very dark except for my flashlight…which was scanning the treetops like a searchlight for air plants. Remembering the real reason we came I jumped into action…. grabbing one of the huge stalks. The long thin branches of the stalks.. scraping my skin. “Hurry, Cherie said…..And be quiet”…. Just then a loud thud as Cherie’s first giant stalk hit the tuck bed. “We’ve almost got it I said…. Almost home free.” We loaded the last of it and sped off down the street…. A little disoriented we drove home hoping the long pieces that were dragging the ground behind us wouldn’t fall out of the truck and take the rest of the mother load with it. When we got back to the house…. We piled the bamboo over in the side yard for safe keeping until we figured out what kind of neat/crafty/floridaish stuff we could do with it…..
Meanwhile Guy had just realized that Cherie had taken the keys to is truck……..Right out of his pocket……and she’d been gone at least 10 minutes.

But that is a whole other story……..For some other time. The real story here is the used car lot out front. As you all know from previous journal postings of mine (See…. she said 10/23/2000) we have three cars. We have the Jeep…. Mike’s pride and joy. The Jimmy….Andie’s first new car. And the Honda….over 170 thousand miles, 10 years old….the car Mike just can’t bare to part with. So the real problem that I have with all this is that…. I’m the only one that drives. I go to school…work…run errands……..Mike works from home……and rarely leaves. The grass in the side yard is dead from the Honda sitting there too long. Not to mention the Jeep just went through repairs that cost upwards of $1,000 because it sat so long the bolts in the radiator rusted through, blowing coolant and rust all over everything when Mike started it up.
Tomorrow is trash day and Mike and I were taking the trash out this evening…… when you start towards the curb with the garbage…you are blocked by a Wall-o-Cars. Mike hired someone to trim the shrubs the other day and the Jeep had to be moved. It was in behind the Honda at an angle….which made me have to park the Jimmy crooked in the yard.

Where is this going and what does it have to do with Bamboo?

I know I know……..But the Bamboo was in the way of all the cars in the drive way because it had to be moved for the shrub trimmer too…… Something had to be done. So we talked about putting the Honda back on the dead spot…..But we deiced we wanted the grass to grow again there someday….. Mike wanted to put the Jeep in behind the dead spot….but I wouldn’t let him because that’s Guy Victor’s favorite parking spot when he visits….and nothing could be moved up too far because of the bamboo. The problem with the Bamboo is that is had to be moved either around the other side of the house, (doesn’t that sound like a lot of work?) or into the back yard where the dogs play…..among other things. So a solution was finally reached after way too much deliberation.

The Honda and the Bamboo stayed where it was and the Jeep came all the way up to the Bamboo, and the Jimmy was parked in behind it. Another evening of “car juggling” at the DeVoe’s is over.

I guess this was kind of a long story…….but I really couldn’t think of any other way to tell it…….From reading this posting people might think we’re lazy, stupid, and have way too many cars. What was that book called again? Don’t sweat the small stuff? Hmmmmm I wonder if I should read that……… Florida Public Utilities