cooking up some fun

Here is a recipe to spice up your life.

Take a handful of distraction, a dash of assumption, and several pieces of being late. Slip them into your car at a busy instersection, and you can treat your car to a week-long spacation in Barra de Navidad.

Last Saturday I was running late for a dinner date in San Patricio. Of course, every hindrance imaginable waltzed into my way. When I finally made it to the Y-intersection to Highway 200, I was ready to make up time.

There was only one vehicle -- a sturdy old pickup -- waiting for a break in what had been a steady stream of cars heading toward the little fishing villages where I live and play. He started to ease into traffic. I cleared to the left then to the right. There was plenty of space for both of us to merge into traffic.

The problem was my assumption. I thought the pickup had continued to move. It didn't. And neither did until I smacked into the pickup's bumper.

We both got out. I had a small mark on the front of my car. There was no indication on his bumper that I had even touched it. I was surprised because the impact was hard.

He had no physical injuries. His truck was fine. We parted -- and he had a story to tell of the hyperactive gringo.

On Monday night, my friend Joyce asked if my hood was open. I told her I did not think so. But I would check. I looked at it when I got home. It was in that released-but-not-open position. And it would neither open nor close. I had obviously done some damage to the car.

I had promised to take Omar to Manzanillo on Tuesday to buy him some shoes. Instead, I told him a story. Children always love parental stories -- especially when it is an obvious smokescreen for denying them something they want.

It must have been 1967 -- or thereabout. I had asked my then-girlfriend Donna if she could find a blind date for my friend Graden. She said she could.

On the arranged night, Graden and I were driving to her house to go to a movie -- or dinner -- or something. On 82nd Avenue (one of Portland's busier streets) Graden rear-ended a car. The radiator survived, but the hood latch was broken. We tied it down with some wire.

We were very late in arriving at Donna's place. It took a bit of talking to get us back into the girls' good graces. But we were soon on our way to wherever we were going.

Wherever it was, we needed to drive south on I-5. Just as we entered the dreaded Terwilliger curves, the hood popped up and folded itself over the winshield and the top of Graden's convertible. How Graden managed to avoid a collision, I do not know.

He pulled to the side of the freeway, and we once again tied down the now-severely deformed hood.

I don't remember if the four of us ever made it to where we were going. It would be hard to imagine that anything else could have been more entertaining. I am certain I never saw Donna's friend again.

By the time I was done explaining to Omar why I dd not want to drive to Manzanillo with a sprung hood, he was drowsy. His attention probably drifted off somewhere between the accident and arriving at Donna's house. Instead, I took my car to Cruz's body shop.

At times, the prospective listeners to my stories must feel like Edwin Stanton in Lincoln when the president starts telling a story about Ethan Allen. Stanton loses all patience: No! No, you're, you're going to tell a story! I don't believe that I can bear to listen to another one of your stories right now!"

But sometimes we need stories to get us through our day. This morning I stopped reading the newspaper because every story -- even the election news -- was filtered through the coronavirus. Enough is enough.

Keith Proudman, a local denizen of Facebook, commented this afternoon that people should start sharing interesting and fun stories about our lives here instead of obsessing about the coronavirus. I agree. Life does not stop because there are troubles in the world.

Of course, some troubles mean that Omar does not get new shoes. And I am certain he finds that far more traumatic than contracting a virus.