Saturday, May 3, 2008

Trunk Full O' Surprises


So let's talk about the 30 cans of beer that have been strewn about the trunk of my car for the past 8 months. Oh yeah, and an entire box of powdered laundry detergent that exploded everywhere...which has probably been there for 2 years. And the big portfolio of art work from sophomore year of college...I graduated a year ago.


Obviously, I need to clean out my trunk. But I refuse to do so. It's never been a problem...I usually just lay my groceries or whatever on top of the charcoal drawings of a naked man with a stick, the Natural Light, and the thin layer of laundry detergent.


It never was a problem, that is, until today. My father gave me his bicycle over Christmas, and I finally decided to take it in to get a tune-up this morning. I pulled my back seat forward to make room for the bike. As I was shoving the bicycle in the trunk, the sharp edge of one of the pedals punctured a can of warm Nattie Light. Skunked, crappy beer sprayed everywhere, mixing with the powdered laundry detergent. It began to form a hybrid beer-detergent paste, or "beer-tergent" if you will.


I muttered some profanity under my breath, and grabbed the leaking beer can out of the trunk. After disposing of the mostly empty beer can, I came back to continue shoving my bike into my trunk. Once it was properly crammed into my car, I sped off to the bike repair shop, the haunting scent of beer and detergent wafting through the car.


Once at the bike shop, I yanked out my bike and wheeled it into the bike shop.


"I'm here for a tune-up," I said to the guy behind the counter.


"Ok, cool," he said as he started to inspect the bike. "What is this white pasty stuff all over the side?"


"Um, yeah, I don't know what that is...don't know at all. But the tune-up includes a cleaning, right? I'm sure it will come right off," I smiled back sweetly.


He leaned in to smell the bike (which is weird, I mean, that's taking a risk, leaning in to smell something). He stood up quick, with a sour look on his face, "Yes, this will definitely need cleaning."


I considered for a moment asking him to come and clean out my trunk as well, but I thought that might be pushing it too far...