William, it was really nothing

Bear with me a moment.

When I was in high school, I had a truck. It was a compact Ford pickup. We called it the Danger Ranger, mainly for its habit of attracting, and then murdering deer. 

My dad loved that truck. He’d driven it first, and he drove it again when I went off to college. Even while I had it, he was forever tinkering with it. Except that nothing was ever really wrong.

Sure, there were some things I wanted: a CD player; one of those sweet cell phones that came in a bag and plugged into the cigarette lighter; him to take the goddamn gun rack out of the back window. But none of those things really affected whether the truck worked, and I never got any of those anyway. 

Still, he’d come in and say things like “I fixed your truck!” and I’d have a shiver of dread knowing the latest enhancement would make the thing cut out in second gear, or have the windshield wipers flip on whenever I hit the horn. 

It was terribly frustrating to have these things I never wanted or asked for hamper the basic functionality of the truck. Any time I’d bitch about it he’d ask “How much did you pay for this truck?” before heading back outside to add two racing stripes but inadvertently cut the brakes.

In COMPLETELY UNRELATED news, Tumblr added a new “Fanmail” feature today.