| There's this guy who lives across the street | | | | VW, but he does anyway. My wife knows when he |
| from us who we have renamed Wet Lips. When we | | | | is coming long before he turns off the main |
| are in a really lighthearted mood, we refer | | | | road and onto our street. Then he cuts the |
| to him as Puffy Wet Lips. This gomer is in | | | | wheels suddenly to the left in directly front |
| his late 60's to early 70' and has a body | | | | of our window and doesn't so much drive into |
| like Mr. McGoo and lips like Angelina | | | | the parking space as flies into it as though |
| Jolie's. I mean they are two huge puffy red | | | | shot out of a rocket launcher. |
| and unnatural things that look like a pair of | | | | |
| slugs. I keep waiting for them to take off in | | | | Then, he backs up. Then he goes forward. Then |
| a race around his little head at any moment. | | | | he backs up. Then he goes forward. Then he |
| Actually, he looks more like that toady | | | | backs up. Then he goes forward. He does this |
| little man with the horned-rimmed glasses and | | | | exactly five times. And, each time he backs |
| freaky, scratchy voice who used to be on | | | | up, he comes within inches of our bedroom |
| LateNight with David Letterman and whose name | | | | window and fills our house with carbon |
| I can never remember. | | | | monoxide. Once he is Obsessively- |
| | | | Compulsively satisfied that the car is snugly |
| Anyway, Wet Lips drives this ancient VW Bug | | | | into his slot, then he hammers down on the |
| on which he has to rebuild the engine each | | | | accelerator while foraging about for one of |
| Saturday. I think it had to be one of the | | | | those red-barred things that lock the |
| very first Volkswagens Bugs every built. | | | | steering wheel up so no one will steal his |
| Somehow, he got it into Mexico after taking | | | | machine of asphyxiating death. |
| it from Hitler right after the war or | | | | |
| something like that. Wet Lips keeps running | | | | (As if someone would want his bomb that |
| this "car" when he should show some | | | | belches foul-smelling blue smoke!) |
| humanitarian kindness and have it put down. | | | | |
| | | | All the while, Larry Lead-Foot is hammered |
| Wet Lips drives this car endlessly, | | | | down on the gas pedal and we, well, we start |
| relentlessly, and stupidly. We live on the | | | | walking all wobbly, start falling down a lot, |
| end of a dead-end street and "Puffy," as we | | | | and begin seeing things that are not there. |
| are wont to call him, comes in and out of his | | | | |
| little cochera (carport) dozens upon dozens | | | | I have got to suppress the urge to go |
| of times a day. The man is a maniac. No one | | | | outside, drag him from his car, and hold his |
| has to use a car that often anywhere or for | | | | mouth over the exhaust pipe and screech like |
| anything that many times a day. But, he | | | | a madman, "How's that tasting for you, |
| evidently has many places to go and many | | | | Puffy?" |
| people to see each day. When he makes his | | | | |
| frequent trips, we always know it because he | | | | I truly do not get what possessed Mexicans in |
| parks the Blue Beetle right in front of our | | | | this town to get cars in such |
| bedroom window. | | | | environmental-destroying abundance. Those who |
| | | | have cars, and sometimes more than one, are |
| Here is how the man parks his car. His little | | | | beginning to have the same obesity problems |
| carport is exactly three meters in front of | | | | that Americans, Canadians and now many |
| our bedroom window. We know this distance for | | | | Europeans are suffering. |
| a fact because one time, last summer, someone | | | | |
| tried to blow up a taxi across from our | | | | They will get into a car to drive two hundred |
| window by setting it on fire and that's what | | | | yards all in the name of "Car Ownership |
| motivated us to take scientific measurements. | | | | Convenience" when they could walk! So badly |
| The flaming taxi was right next to Wet Lips' | | | | is car ownership coveted that the payoff for |
| car. Nothing happened to the VW | | | | having a car far outweighs affording their |
| (unfortunately) but the cab was toast. | | | | kids clean air and a healthier body by |
| | | | walking rather than motoring. |
| So, here comes Wet Lips tearing up the street | | | | |
| at speeds no one should be able to drive a | | | | That is a mystery to me! |