Some days, things don’t go the way you think they’re going to go. First it was my car. I heard a strange sound, looked under the car and saw a piece of metal dragging the pavement. Oh no, this is going to cost me. I drove to the repair shop downtown, dragging the metal piece all the way. That night somebody rang my doorbell at 10 o’clock at night. I don’t answer the door at that hour. Probably some drunk. Then they went to the back door, ring, ring, ring. I thought about calling the police. Back to the car repair shop. “Give me your keys,” said the guy behind the counter. I was in a foul mood, but handed over the keys though he hadn’t even checked me in. He came back minutes later, handed me the keys, “You’re good to go.” He had put the metal back in place. “We get those all the time. No charge.” That night, exasperated by the late-night doorbell ringer, I finally looked through the glass. “What’s going on?” I shouted, without opening the door. The woman on the other side smiled, then held up my driver’s license that, she explained, she had found on the ground at the gas station down the street. “I thought you would want it.” –Fletcher Farrar, editor
This article appears in Thousand-Year Statehouse.
