Asleep at the Wheel 4

One morning last week I woke up in my own bed. I didn't find myself any place unusual. I had the covers over my head, my feet sticking out from my dirty white sheets ... just like it should be. When I looked out my bedroom window onto the driveway, there was a red Chrysler parked there.

That's not my car, I thought.

There was a note tucked under the driver's side wiper and when I went outside to see what it said I noticed that the handwriting was pretty familiar.

"Car broke down. Will be right back to pick it up. Sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks." No name, no phone number. Just handwriting that looked like it could have been mine. It was printed and in a hurry too. It might have been someone else's. I Just couldn't be sure. I figured I'd give myself or whoever left this car here the benefit of the doubt.

For two days the car went nowhere. I was thinking about calling the cops to check out the plates, but what if the car was used in some crime. I might be blamed for it. Did I even touch the car? I looked in the tinted window and saw a skull in the backseat. It was probably plastic, but what kind of freak drives around with a skull -- real or fake -- in their car?

Two days later, the Chrysler was gone. No note. No skull. I didn't see anyone take it. Didn't hear anything unusual. Don't know where it went or who took it.

Darla was pissed that I didn't tell her about the car when she could have had the chance to break into it to look around. Not really pissed mind you, just sort of fake disappointed pissed and whiny like some grand opportunity for excitement and adventure had been squandered by my total lack of guts and imagination. Truth is, I probably would have told her about it if she'd answered her phone that week.

It's always feast or famine with this chick, but not the good kind of feast. No, Darla's attention was more like eating three plates of sweet and sour chicken at the Chinese buffet and topping it off with a bowl of really cheap ice milk. The whole thing was worth about five bucks without the drink.