Photo by Tim Samuel from Pexels
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, passes along the keeper’s observation that there was once a time when it was possible, even beneficial, to establish a relationship with a personal mode of transportation simply by talking to a horse. In the early iteration of the automobile age—when under-the-hood mechanicals could be understood and repaired with wrenches and screwdrivers, there remained an inclination to create vehicle-driver relationships, sometimes adversarial as when grandpa threw the crank through the windshield of an old Chevy that wouldn’t start.
Then came computers!
So the keeper usually does the driving, and Phyllis operates the magic screen that consorts with god, and does everything but scratch itches; and on a recent morning the keeper dropped Phyllis off at a medical appointment and then headed for home to discover that Phyllis had turned on the keeper’s seat-heater and he does not know how to turn it off, and it is producing heat at what seems to be an alarming level.
There is then the spectacle of an elderly—oh, alright “old” driver in heavy morning traffic, poking futilely at a dashboard computer screen, and using elaborate profanity while he attempts to communicate with his high-tech vehicle as his ass becomes increasingly and uncomfortably overheated.
The keeper yearns for a horse to talk to or a crank to throw.
