My little boy loves cars. LOOOOVES cars. Pretty much anything with wheels, actually. If a Barbie doll had wheels, he’d play with that. He’ll grab a toy car, any size, and roll it around the room and be the happiest kid ever. Nothing hypnotizes him more than the animated “Cars” movie on the DVD player.
Meanwhile, this little nerd-in-training’s father is borderline obsessed with “Speed Racer.” (See where this is going?) So I have to confess a tremendous burst of pride when Armand was sitting on his little Lightning McQueen couch while the live-action “Speed Racer” DVD was on and he got excited during the racing scenes, picked up his toy Mach 6 and Racer-X cars and started banging them together while he made crashing sounds. I swear, it puts a tear in my eye. (He’s got the whole collection of Speed Racer toy cars. Except the Mach 4 – I have to claim at least one for me, right? But I let him play with it all the time anyway.)
In real life, however, it does not pay to crank the “Speed Racer” soundtrack too loud on the highway. A few days ago, I was driving home on the highway and heard a weird flapping sound, which quickly ceased. I stopped to check my tires, because it sounded like I’d gotten a flat, but found nothing wrong. My driving wasn’t affected, so I kept on going. I heard the sound again, louder this time, just as I was pulling off the highway two blocks from home. I figured it was probably a mudflap coming apart.
Not so lucky. A closer examination of the tires revealed that the tread on my passenger side tire had come completely apart – and since it was on the inner area, it was hard to find on my cursory roadside check. In fact, a short time after I stopped, the tire went completely flat, as if whatever force holding it together had breathed its last just as I pulled in.
My mechanic told me it was nothing short of a miracle that this thing made it home. (My mechanic’s great, by the way – he makes house calls, usually does the work right in the driveway, and is probably the most honest contractor I’ve ever had. Check him out on the List if you live in Indianapolis – the highly rated “My Car Doc.”)
Anyway, he diagnosed alignment problems and brought it in for realignment. “You must have some guardian angel, all right!” he remarked in the process. He’s more right than he knows.
I seem to have a knack for surviving tough scrapes; I usually just BARELY make it, giving new meaning to “skin of my teeth,” but I always make it home at the end of the day. So I put a lot of stock in my guardian angel. I’ve given it a name and everything. (Incidentally, it turns out I’m not alone – 55 percent of Americans in a recent survey, including one-fifth of those who claim no religion at all, say they believe they’ve been literally aided by a guardian angel in tough times.) But the scrapes are close enough to remind me that one’s luck only goes so far.
So in the meantime, I’m driving a lot more carefully and keeping a closer eye on the alignment, and when Armand and I watch “Speed Racer” together, I take a bit of comfort in at least one fantasy world where cars bang into each other all the time and never seem to take damage — at least, not until they’ve safely crossed the finish line.
