Playing Cemetery

If you have ever done any babysitting you know how the game Cemetery goes: You tell the kids the object of the game is to pretend to be dead and the first one who moves loses. While the brats are making like corpses you check out what their parents have in the liquor cabinet.

The tenants of the buildings in my neighborhood play a similar game with our automobiles. We could call this game Abandoned Vehicle. The object of this game is to see how long you can go without driving. You leave your car in the same spot on the street and watch as it collects a thick layer of seagull shit and leaves. The windshield wipers become a paper weight for club flyers and take-out menus. The winner is the first car to get a towing notice pasted to the windshield.

There is a Mercedes parked in front of my car that really looks like hell. It heartens me to think that the owner could have such utter contempt for this expensive piece of German engineering. I wonder if the people sitting next to this guy at the bus stop would be impressed to learn that he chooses to take mass transit over an over-priced yuppie-mobile?

I have a question for the guy with the Saab: Do you really think you are playing fairly by taking the air out of your front tire? I just don’t see why Abandoned Vehicle can’t be a civilized game played without cheating. He got a towing notice and his tire miraculously filled up and the car crawled a few parking spots away. I got a towing notice a while back and I did it without any sort of dirty tricks. I did it the honest way by simply not driving for about six weeks.

You are probably asking why any of us even bother owning a car. For my purposes Seattle really isn’t a big enough city to completely abandon my vehicle. I take trips out of town fairly frequently during the summer months. Lots of people I know choose not to have a car and get along just fine. Not having to drive is an incredible luxury that few people in this country are able to enjoy.

P.S. OPERATION GLENN GOULD (see my post from 7 OCT 02) is going rather well and the offer still stands. I see my sending out CD's as the Berlin Airlift of classical music. Sony Classical is the evil Soviet empire and Leftbanker is the heroic and defiant American Air Force. I hope you all enjoy this CD as much as I have. Please leave a comment for me when you get your CD's.