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April 13, 2006
Thumbs in the Air
Picking up where we left off ...
Marketing people will quickly point out that part of any successful sales campaign in the packaging of the product. Presentation is often the key to success or failure.
Anybody on the street will tell you that some things look better in bigger packages ... beer, Doritos, chips (generally all of your snack foods), and breasts (to an extent), while other things look better in smaller packages ... boot-ays, the French (according to one of my British coworkers), and dishevelment.
Having been ripping down the road at 80 mph with the windows down, Tom, Dick, Sherry and I were likely at the peak of our disheveledness. I had also not yet picked up on the finer points of beard trimming and had sort of a wild growh on my face. And I'll bet I had not bathed. Or brushed my teeth. (Fortunately, as I'd been sucking gas out of the fuel line, bad breath was not going to be a problem for me.
Sherry, while equally disheveled, was packaged better. She's five foot one and three quarters ("because when you're this short every quarter inch counts," she would tell me years later) and didn't have the surface area necessary to look really messy. Also, she's a girl, and girls just make looking unkempt work ... somehow. I'm guessing she had a toothbrush in her purse, too.
"I'll bet we could hitchhike," Sherry said.
"OK, But you need to stand in front so passersby can see that I'm with a girl." And it's not just some big, sloppy goon here.
With her laundry in front of us and Sherry closest to approaching traffic we stuck our thumbs in the air. In just a minute or two someone stopped. My recollection is that it was a guy in a pickup truck with a child.
We threw the laundry in the bed of the truck and headed up the road. Tom and Dick saw us coming and waved.
We waved back.
Either Tom or Dick had to get to Cincinnati Airport (located conveniently in Kentucky ... which means we must have broken down in Kentucky), to pick up his girlfriend; whichever one I designated as Al in yesterday's installment. They would eventually make it, smelling of gas, and with no car to transport the lovely Cathy home.
Sherry and I had to get to Springboro. We would eventually make it as well.
We got several rides and found that people that picked strangers up liked to talk. A lot. Sherry eventually started creating secondary stories to go along with our hitchhiking, not so much because bailing out of a burning Beetle lacked excitement, but, just because. We were picked up by the guy in the pickup, a guy in an 18-wheeler and a guy in a station wagon; this last guy was the most talkative. There may have been another ride or two in there; we never had to wait long between cars.
One of the hitchhikees let us out near Mason. I knew that Al's mom worked at a bank near the exit and Sherry and I thought we'd hike over to see if she'd heard anything from her son. I know what you're thinking ... what a brilliant move! Al's mom had not heard anything from her son -- his running from a burning vehicle caught her by surprise. Sherry and I assured her that we were certain Al was fine and there was nothing to worry about. I'm sure out appearance put her at ease more than even our words were able to. We hiked back to the on-ramp.
This may be where the guy in the station wagon picked us up.
I was certain that when we got close to Springboro that someone we knew would give us a lift. I was right. Our last ride was with Suitcase Simpson. He'd gone to high school with Sherry and I knew him from Miami University, Middletown (that's MUM y'all). We loaded up the laundry, hopped in, and we were off.
We eventually caught up with Tom and Dick. Sherry got her laundry done.
We all lived happily ever after.
(I know I promised a story involving The Man this week. But in order to maintain some sort of sense with respect to timelines, this story had to come first.)
The Bruise was eventually towed home. Dave Steinbach helped me rewire it -- he called off colors from another bug's wiring harness and I made connections in The Bruise using all white wires. At one point Dave asked for some help identifying one of the wires. My memory is that he said, "Del, I need help with this one. I think it's green, but it may have some grease on it."
It was clean and brown. And that's when I remembered that Dave was color blind.
Oh well. When all was said and done, The Bruise ran.
Posted by delmer at April 13, 2006 5:55 PM