Let's Hope Hick Didn't Leave My T-Hoe at Jiffy Park

Yesterday, Hick put a stop to the way I roll. Literally. He swiped T-Hoe from the garage, and fitted him with new brakes. Not in the manner of driving T-Hoe to town and paying retail for parts and labor. In the manner of driving T-Hoe to the BARn, cranking him up, digging elbow-deep into his foot innards, and installing brakes he bought at the auto parts store.

Hick is good with machines. He's a tinkerer. If there's no part available, he makes one out of scrap metal, saliva, armpit hair, duct tape, and hope. It's not just a hobby. He does the same thing at work. He's a mechanical genius. In fact, back in the days when Hick used to pretend to deer hunt every November, the joke amongst his hunter friends was that Hick's deer stand had a couch and TV and refrigerator and flush toilet. Which of course was not true. Though he did seem to do an inordinate amount of sleeping in the tree limbs. Thus he never shot a deer, but was gifted portions of other hicks' deers, as thanks for fixing their gadgets and procuring butchering accoutrements for them at a good price from his business suppliers.

It would seem that putting brakes on T-Hoe was a no-brainer for Hick. A slam-dunk. Easy peasy. A one-hand-tied-behind-the-back cakewalk. Nothing to write home about. Get 'em off, get 'em on, drive T-Hoe back to the garage, and hop on the Gator for a trip down to the creek and a brief respite in the cabin.

The sight that greeted me this morning in the garage was not pretty. I opened T-Hoe's door and reached across the driver's seat to set my purse on the console. I sensed right away that something was amiss. The leather seat that has been my domain for 98% of the life of T-Hoe was not at its maximum distance from the steering wheel. Val is a mommy-long-legs. With lengthy orangutan arms. Her setting of "1" on the driver's side door moves that seat to the ends of the earth. Or at least into the back seat of T-Hoe. No way could I paper-doll-accordion myself to fit behind the wheel. I pushed the memory button to restore my vehicular furniture to my designated position. All was well. The universe was restored to order. Or was it...

The radio was on the SiriusXM 70s station. Odd. I thought I had left it on the old country setting. Hick's preferred ear candy. Oh, well. I clicked past several stations with my steering-wheel finger-button. Some Christmas tunes, perhaps, from Channel 17. Or 4. What's this? I always have my display showing the artist. I know the name of the song. I know the station. What I want to memorize, for future trivia contest purposes, are the singers of the songs. I'll be ding-dang-donged! Now I have to figure out how to put that info back. Fie on electronic gewgaws! So easy to disrupt, so hard to restore.

I noticed a skirmish of one in the backseat. "What are you doing? The heat isn't warm yet! Don't turn it up. You'll freeze."

"I'm just putting all my controls back to where they were."

Verrrrrrry interesting...did the solar flare energy waft through the tiny glass panels at the top of the garage doors, and reset all of our settings? I don't think so. But the other explanation is just as unbelievable. It was like Hick took my T-Hoe to the bowling alley last night when he went to pay for not bowling tonight in order to go to a basketball game, and morphed into jockey Willie Shoemaker chauffeuring Andre the Giant while they lip-synced disco tunes.

The brakes work. I don't really want to know what went on in my car.