The Palindrome Family, Otto, Eve and their daughter Hannah, were fortunate to live on quiet Top Spot Road outside of the town of Noon. They had few worries about their pets, livestock and little Hannah being in danger of traffic. The Top Spot Road had been built by the state to connect the town of Noon with the town of Gnu Dung by way of the bridge across the Rio Grimy river. Since the bridge had been destroyed by Hurricane Ellen five years ago and not yet replaced, the Palindromes were the only regular users of the straight and level, two lane Top Spot Road. Since their toddler Hannah was fond of crossing the road to play in a pond there, a lack of traffic made things easier for Mom, Eve.
Last summer the situation changed for the Palindromes. Nolon, the quarter back and most popular jock at the Dumb Mud High School got a driver’s license. Nolon thought his family’s car, A Toyota, was really a racecar . One of his favorite pastimes was accumulating all of the car’s drag-race statistics. With his girl friend, “Evil Olive”, handling a stop watch, Nolon clocked his time for 0 - 60 mph acceleration, the time and speed for a standing quarter mile, and top speed. Naturally a Toyota wasn’t distinguishing at those events so Nolon couldn’t brag among his school mates that were piloting Mustangs, Camaros, Firebirds, Chargers and Porsches. Nolon studied how to soup-up a Toyota.
Nolon could only try changes that were not visually apparent because his dad, Bob, would have demoted him back to a bicycle if he knew the car was being raced. Nolon had to be satisfied with a number of tweaks like changing tire pressure, removing the air filter, changing the timing, and reducing weight. He took out the back seats, the spare tire and jack, and Evil Olive’s purse, for testing with less weight but he had to return them before he got home.
When Eve informed Otto about the crazy car antics on Top Spot Road in front of their house, Otto’s reaction was, “ Dammit I’m Mad!” Otto decided to put some bumps in the road that would discourage Nolon from using it as a raceway but it would be past Otto’s driveway so the family wouldn’t be bothered by it.
Otto was a welder by trade so he made an adjustable steel wedgie as long as the road was wide and painted it yellow. The Otto Wedgie had wheels at each end so it could easily be removed from the road. Otto painted a yellow stripe across the road so that at a distance it wasn’t obvious if a bump was in the road or only a stripe.
Nolon was annoyed by the wedgie but even more so when only the stripe was there and he had slowed down to ease over the area and found a flat level road. It irritated Nolon that some one was outsmarting him. When he complained to the sheriff about an insidious bump in the road and the sheriff found only a yellow stripe, the sheriff treated him like a nut case and ignored further protests.
On his next excursion down Top Spot Road, Nolon was expecting only a paint stripe and not a bump in the road, he hit it a fairly high speed. There was more than paint there now but the Wedgie had been lowered to just an inch in height so that even though he had hit it high speed, it was a gentle bump. Later when he came at it from the other direction at a higher speed he encountered Otto’s latest gimmick: off in the weeds there was a hidden tank of high pressure air. Nolon’s first crossing had triggered a pneumatic piston that raised the wedgie to its full height. Nolon found himself in a Toyota sinking in a nearby pond. A front tire had blown and the wheel broke off completely during the trip to the pond. Fortunately “Evil Olive” was not aboard on that trip. By the time Nolon got out of the pond, only the yellow line was at his launch site.
Nolon is riding a bicycle now. His dad, Bob, had managed to tow a Toyota out of the pond but it had to be scrapped. A horizontal yellow line can still be seen on Top Spot Road but its purpose is unknown by the Texas Department of Transportation or TDT. They think it might have been a paint test that was not recorded.
***
No comments:
Post a Comment