DECOMPOSITION, GLOVE BOXES & EXITING VEHICLES

 I’ve always wondered something, and have never been able to come up with a reasonable explanation.

Why can’t men just get out of cars?

Whenever we arrive somewhere, I open up the door, and hop out.

Then, the waiting begins.

First, Stij adjusts the mirror.  Why he does this is a mystery to me.  He has to use the side mirrors to drive, because our truck has a cap on it and the bed is packed to the gunwales with things like saws, tool boxes, spackle, paint, and the decomposing body of his ex-wife.  Therefore, the rear view mirror is out of the question.

Next, he takes off his seat belt, gazing down at it as if he’s never seen it before and is unsure of how to work it or even what its purpose is. Finally, he takes it off.

Next, he checks the glove box.  There is nothing in the glove box, there never has been anything in the glove box, but he checks it anyhow.  Perhaps in the vain hope that something he has lost will suddenly turn up there.  But no, not today.  He closes it.

Then he adjusts the radio.  We haven’t been listening to the radio, but he adjusts it anyway.

Then he checks his phone.  It hasn’t rung during the trip, but he figures he might  have hit some sort of mute button by mistake and may have missed a call from his brother inviting him to a camping trip which he will never, until Satan skates to work, ever agree to go on.

Finally, he opens the door, but not all the way.  It kind of hangs there in partially open door limbo for five minutes or so, until he closes it again, to reach around and fumble about in the back seat…presumably for some Febreeze to take the edge off the ex-wife in the truck bed.

The door opens all the way!  At last, we’ll be able to get inside to his sister’s dinner party before dessert.

But no, he realizes he still has his sunglasses on, so the door closes while he takes them off and stows them in the compartment between the seats.

Is it at this point that I grow impatient.

I wrench open the door and scream, “What are you doing in there?  Forging a Van Gogh?  Come on, already!”

And you know what he says?

“Well, I was just waiting for you.”

Funeral services will be held at Elysian Memorial Gardens at two o’clock this Sunday.