POEM - The Thing

The year The Thing came home

To live with us and be ours

Life was just better

Because it’s hard to have worries

When the top is down

The wind is in your hair

And the sun is shining just right

And we had our troubles

It was a difficult relationship

The Thing had some baggage

Left over from its previous resident

A bum motor and a crummy generator

But it was a labor of love

Each time I sat there

Twisting a bolt

Or changing a part

In anticipation of our next journey

After I got the new engine in

And four new tires

I was sitting at work

Answering phones at SkyMall

Thinking more about my car

Than any of the voices in my ear

It was more than I could take

I asked Loren if he wanted to go for a ride

We jumped in the car

Fired up the engine

And drove around the parking lot

Then I took it too far

But at the time it was purely practical

I needed to show him

That my car wouldn’t bottom out

No matter what

So we raced off across the dirt lot

That sat inside the work compound

The future site of something

That never came to be

I plowed through a huge indentation

Did a few donuts

And never once hit bottom

I guess I should have known

When Agnes or Gretchen or whatever her name was

Came walking out of the warehouse

I knew she’d snitch

Just to make someone else

As miserable as she looked

Back in the lunch room

We were jovial and happy

The heady rush of adrenaline

Slowly receding

When our supervisor found us

            Were you doing donuts. . .

                        In the parking lot?!?!

Yeah! I said emphatically

            Um . . . Don’t do that.

And he walked off shaking his head

I hadn’t expected such disapproval

It made it even funnier

Loren and I cracked up

When we were sure he was gone

In the end The Thing went away

Based on a foolish assumption

That we needed to be responsible

What we needed was a convertible

Let our problems go

            Fly away in the breeze

                        Whipping through our flowing hair