Sneak Peeks by Louise Yeiser McAlpin

The Auto Fix-It Store

My husband asked me if I would do him a favor and take the car to the auto fix-it place to get the oil changed. I was happy to help him out.

Once I told the man what I wanted, he asked, "Maam, would you like super-duper or regular?"

Isn't super-duper always better than regular?

"I'll take the super-duper please. "

Five minutes later, "Maam, would you like a new filter?"

He held my filter up for me to see. Icky poo. Caked with gradu on the entire left side. For comparison, he raised a sparkling clean filter and positioned them side by side. I studied them carefully. Of course we needed a nice, bright, new one. He got to work right away.

"Ma'am," he said, interrupting my attempt to send a text message to my husband, to tell him I was doing a good job, taking care of the car. I looked up in annoyance.

"When was the last time you changed your coolant?"

What is coolant?

"I don't know, " I said.

What he held up for me to examine was quite pretty.

"Did that come out of my car?" I asked.

"Yep."

It was a sparkling, clean, plastic container filled with what looked like distilled pink lemonade mixed with water, with rainbow-colored disks, or markers of some sort, lining the left side. I wanted to hang it in my window at home.

"No, thank you," I said.

Too new, too pink. I would not be fooled.

I texted K.C. before heading home.

"Oil changed! I bought everything they recommended, except the coolant. If we need new coolant, you'll have to do it yourself later."

"Oh, no!" he texted back. "Next time I'll take it myself."

 

 

Sunday Drivers

Whenever KC and I drive around the lake, which is often, since we live two miles up the road from it, we marvel at its colors. Sometimes blue, sometimes green, sometimes teal, turquoise, gray, sometimes glassy, sometimes full of chop and whitecaps. Every time we look, it’s different.

Sunday, on our way to church, the lake was a light celery color, dramatically marbled with steel grays and murky browns. The water was quite smooth, but not glassy, and it was pocked with tiny splotches of shadow, which was odd because the sun shone directly on it.

“That’s weird,” I said. “The water should be sparkly. The sun is shining all over it, but instead of making sparkles, it’s making dark spots that look like itty speckles of sand.”

“That is weird,” KC agreed. “I wonder why it’s making shadows?”

“I don't know. It's making anti-sparkles,” I said. “The opposite of sparkles.”

“Interesting. Now all we need is a word for them. You can’t just call them ‘anti-sparkles.’”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because,” he replied.

“Oh,” I said.

"So what would be the opposite of sparkles?” he asked.

I spent a moment in deep, relevant thought.

"I know!” I cried. “We’ll call them ‘Narkles!’”

"Good job, Wease,” he said.

'Why thank you,” I replied. “Being clever is one of my many talents."

"Give me narkles or give me death!” I said. “To err is human; to narkle divine!”

KC rolled his eyes and we finally arrived at church.

"Get thee to a narkery!”

KC ignored me.

“Get behind me, Narkles?”

We got out of the car and the conversation ended.

I guess that’s the way the narkles crumble. You narkle some, you lose some.

 

 

Serious Writing, Schmerious Schmriting

Good intentions paved the way to, well, to somewhere that is fortunately outside my area of expertise. Regardless, it appears I’m back.

“Why?” you may ask.

Because two men passed me on the sidewalk the other day. I had just left a favorite bookstore and emerged into a clear Indian summer day, with a cloudless, deep blue sky spread out above and around me. One of the men was tall with a light blue shirt and a cane, the other was rather hefty and wore a gray sweatshirt, and both had shocking white hair that positively gleamed in the sunshine. They wore sunglasses. Quite the studs, for two old guys.

“Here comes trouble,” the tall one said.

Was he talking to me?

They stopped and stared at me.

“Did you hear me? I was talking to you. I said, ‘Here comes trouble!’”

Wow.

“I am trouble,” I said and stepped onto the grass to maneuver around them. We all laughed.

I kept walking without looking back and I can honestly say that this silly snapshot of one of life's weird, little vignettes totally made my day, and possibly my entire week. I simply had to blog about it.

And that. Is. Why. I’m. Back!

From Louise