Excentric
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| That Really Bunches My Panties! . . .
by Brendon MarksA co-worker covers his car every day in the parking lot. I wonder about him. He arrives at work, opens his trunk and removes a bag containing the cover. It's actually all one piece; kind of like stuffing your whole pair of pants into one of the front pockets. He pulls the cover out and spreads it over the car with the little bag hanging down in the back. He tugs at the front corners to cover the bumper and goes to the back. Does the same for the back corners, repeats until all four corners stay in place, reaches up under to tuck the bag into the trunk, and closes the lid on the strap that connects the bag to the cover, locking the whole contraption together. I suggested that he close the bag in the trunk before spreading the cover over the car, but he said he tried that, and always came up short. I resisted the urge to point out that marking the strap would solve that problem.
At the end of the day he reverses the process, except that on some days he takes the cover off the car. Other days he picks it up off the ground. I can imagine that on those days when the cover stays on, it probably does make a significant difference in the internal temperature, but unless he waits until the sun goes down before removing it, the time spent wadding the cover into the bag will see a sharp spike in that internal temperature.
He also has his license plate number written with black indelible ink in great big letters right down the middle of the cover. Apparently, he buys a new cover every time his license plate changes. I asked him about that once, and wait 'till you hear this. He said it was to keep people from stealing it. I said, "How can they steal it? You've got it locked in the trunk."
He said, "That's just the bag. They can cut that right off."
I said, "You can't cut metal."
"So? What does cutting metal have to do with cutting this cover?"
"Well if your car is made out of metal, and this cover protects your car, it must be tougher than metal, right? If it's tougher than metal, how can they cut it?"
I pointed out that during the Middle Ages extensive research proved conclusively that the guys who went out to fight wearing tin suits fared much better than the ones who wore only burlap sacks. The burlap guys were a little quicker on their feet, but they could only run for so long. Eventually the tin suit guys would catch up, lop off a significant body part or simply fall on them in exhaustion, crushing them to death. Either way the burlap guys lost out.
He failed to see my logic and there we stood, discussing ultraviolet light, the hole in the ozone layer, and the fact that apparently the manufacturer of this particular car never anticipated it might spend significant time in the sunlight, as he stuffed his cover into a bag that had obviously shrunk considerably since he purchased it. I noticed there were quite a few dead bugs on the front of his car and I asked, "Where did they come from?"
"On the way to work this morning."
I pointed to a nick in his windshield, "How did that happen?"
"Dump truck a couple days ago picked up a stone."
"Shouldn't your cover prevent that?"
"I was driving. You can't use the cover while you're driving."
"Well, bugs usually don't do kamikaze attacks and dump trucks rarely kick stones into windshields of parked cars, so it seems to me that you're protecting your car at the wrong time. Your cover protects the car during the majority of the time, but does nothing during the time of maximum risk."
He just shook his head, threw the bag into the trunk, and slammed the lid. Instantly we both realized that his keys were on top of his briefcase in the trunk.
I think this is precisely the sort of thing a good car cover should prevent.
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