You'll Never See His Picture On the Cover of the Rolling Stone

Yesterday, on that ill-fated trip to transfer the title of Mom's car, I endured several thumps from Even Steven. Among the affronts were:

*the stoppage of traffic, and one-lane passage, for pot-hole filling on the way to the license office

*the need for an unbroughten death certificate

*which necessitated a fruitless trip to the library on the bad advice of the DMV clerk

*a trip back home for the certificate

*a truck that pulled into the parking space right next to T-Hoe as I walked out of the DMV, parking at an angle with his back tire over the line, giving me about two feet of space, which is not enough to open T-Hoe's door completely, so that I had to shoehorn myself into the driver's seat, almost leaving my left foot out because I could barely wedge my shoe in through the crack

*a minimum wage worker at Captain D's who responded to the request of "lots of butter, a knife, tarter sauce, and ketchup" with four packets of butter, a knife, no tarter sauce, and 14 packets of ketchup

*the sudden appearance of an often-stopping mail truck just after committing to the road less traveled

*a fellow lottery-lover/chicken eater who cut in front of T-Hoe to usurp my rightful parking place at the gas station chicken store

*a mailman who had shoved my writing magazine into the far depths of EmBee to soak up yesterday's rain

*a tractor blading the potholed dirt of our gravel road. Slowly.

As I stopped at various destinations on our bill-paying Friday excursion, I sent a few texts to my sister the ex-mayor's wife to keep her updated on our progress while she was safely ensconced back at her immaculate-drivewayed, cleaning-manned house with her grandbaby. She showed about as much empathy as The Pony. Maybe a little more. "You should just go straight home and lock the doors."

I told her: "We're on the way to Captain D's. I hope The Pony doesn't get a hook."

As we sat at the Captain D's drive-thru waiting for The Pony's lunch, we saw movement across the drainage ditch, at the McDonald's parking lot. It was the Hamburglar, dancing around, waving at cars, cape flapping in the wind, wide-brimmed hat flopping to and fro.

"Pony! Get me a picture to send Sis!"

"My phone won't take one that far away."

"Zoom in. Here. I'll put the window down."

"That won't help." He snapped the picture through the tinted back passenger window. "It only goes halfway down."

"Here. I put the front window down. Lean over and shoot through there."

"I can't even hold the phone still like this. There."

"No! You have to get him when he's facing us. You can't even tell he's the Hamburglar from the side! You can't see his striped shirt. HEY! HAMBURGLAR! OVER HERE!"

"Don't. Besides, I already took a picture."

"Like he can see you in the car. You can't have a good picture through the window."

"It looks the same through the window or without."

"Yeah, right. Then how come it looks different to my eyes when I look through a tinted window than when I put it down?"

"I don't know."

"Send me your best picture. Then you're going to send it to Sis. But not yet. Wait until I send her a text."

Then I typed in, slowly, with one finger, as is my style, a text for Sis:
"Oh, no. I think the McDonald's is being robbed! Picture to follow, from The Pony."

He sent it. Sis sent back a message:
"I don't get it."

Of course I had to wait until I was at the traffic light by the local junior college to respond, since we were 10 cars back, and had to sit through two red lights: "That was the Hamburglar. Just joking about my very bad day."

She replied: "Oh. I enlarged the picture, and I still couldn't see a robbery."

So I told her: "I should have known. The Pony is a joke-choker."

Then I looked at the picture. There really is a Hamburglar there, right in the middle.