Lean Over and Look At My Stick Shift

Take a strip of paper, twist one end of it a half-turn (180 degrees), then tape the ends of the strip together. Voila! You have a Mobius Strip. You will find it is a topological form with some amazing characteristics. For one thing, you will find that simple twist has transformed your paper from a two-sided strip into a continuous band with only one side!

That is what I hope the essays and reflections in this blog will be. I don’t want to make or take sides. I want to assume a continuum with only one side. But each stop along my Mobius Strip will present life from a slightly different angle, at a slightly different tilt. One side, but many different views, many different adventures.

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I walked briskly out into the big, almost empty parking lot, but slowed a little as I approached my car. I saw there was a man loitering near it. It was too late. He’d seen me. I sighed. I was headed for a nuisance – or something worse.

“Is this your car?” the man beamed and waved me forward. It didn’t seem possible that he could be too dangerous. He was old and wizened. Yes “wizened” - not a word you hear much anymore. It recalls root cellars and your mother reading Hansel and Gretel to you.

He introduced himself cheerfully. “I’m Norm. Beautiful day, isn’t it? What’s your name? You live around here?”

It had been quite a while since anyone had hit on me. I didn’t know if I should be flattered or frightened. Even though he was small and “up there” in age, he was wiry. He could still do some damage. And it was always possible he had a knife or a gun. He might be counting on his harmless appearance to launch a surprise attack. Oh, all the TV shows have put serial killers on our brains. But I was polite and answered his small talk questions, as vaguely and evasively as possible without being rude. At the same time, I was conscious of the fact that that’s exactly how women get snared – through their compulsion to be polite, accommodating.

“That’s a beautiful Toyota you have,” he switched from strictly personal solicitations. “I love Toyotas. Always bought ‘em. They’re the best thing going. I have one myself – right now. See? It’s parked down there at the other end of the lot. Come and have a look.”

I’d already unlocked my car door, which made me doubly reluctant to follow the man. But again, that persistent female impulsion to be nice won out. And then there was also that ingrained reluctance to stanch the flow of any masculine attention, however unlikely the man. So I provisionally followed him, at a distance.

He continued extolling the virtues of Toyotas all along our course. Finally the fellow stopped short and pointed. “There’s my baby. She’s a ’94. Got 170,000 miles on her and she runs like a charm. I tell you, I’d never buy anything but a Toyota. They’re the best.”

The vehicle in front of me was an odd amalgam. I’m not familiar with makes and models, so I don’t know how to characterize the strange runt I had presented to me. It was a mini-mini-camper – a triple cross between a truncated camper, a scaled-down 2x4 flatbed truck, and a jeep. I didn’t know that Toyota had ever made such an odd fusion vehicle. I wondered if the man might have added that metallic shell on the back of his chassis as storage space himself. It was big enough to hold camping gear – or a couple of dead bodies.

The man continued his patter of praise. He opened his own driver’s door and waved his hand with a flourish, as if he were a model at a car show. “Lookee there. Clean as a whistle. And it’s a stick shift! I always did prefer the manuals myself. This one’s on the steering wheel. That’s how I like ‘em. Leaves your seat free clear across. Here, lean over and look at my stick shift!”

I laughed. I couldn’t help but laugh. Whether that was a racy pick-up line or an inept killer’s attempt to get me to bend down so he could bop me on the head and push me the rest of the way into his car – whatever it was, it was priceless.

The man seemed to take my merriment as sheer shared enthusiasm for his Toyota. He rattled off some more facts and figures about the car (camper, truck, whatever it was). He waxed nostalgic over trips he’d made in it. He got so caught up in his expostulations that he seemed to forget I’d never complied with his urging to stretch into his car.

Finally though I felt I really had to get back to my own Toyota, left vulnerably ajar back there. Like a TV talk show host running out of time, I mumbled some segue wrap-up phrases and started back. The man trotted along behind me, yapping more praise of Toyotas. When we arrived at my car, he insisted on jotting his name and phone number on a paper. He thrust it at me as I was getting in behind my wheel, ready to make my escape.

“Here, call me sometime. I live right back there. Call me. I mean it. Give me a call. I live alone. I get lonely. It’d be nice to have somebody to talk to. Never been married. Had a fiancé once. But she left me while I was away in the War. One of those ‘Dear John’ things, I guess. Soured me on marriage for good. But I sure would like to see you sometime. Give me a call. Promise?”

I briefly pondered what war he could possibly have been in. He looked too young for WWII or Korea – too old for Vietnam. What else was there? But I didn’t want to delay my departure with any more calculation than was absolutely necessary. I was just relieved this hadn’t turned out to be a deadly encounter after all. And indeed, I felt a little bolstered by this prospect of a date, even though I knew I would never call the man. Well, I probably wouldn’t. I politely took the scrap of paper he’d written his name and phone number on. But the triumph of romantic conquest has always been fleeting for me at best.

“Give me a call,” he repeated his urging. “I’ll take you out to lunch – my treat. Bring your Toyota. We can use your car to go to the restaurant. I’d like to ride in another Toyota. So be sure to bring it. Hey, you wouldn’t be interested in selling that car, would you? I wouldn’t mind having another one – as back-up. You can never have too many Toyotas.”

Well, this day had started out sort of flat. But it had ended up being more productive than I could ever have hoped. I had acquired not one, but two catch-phrases to chuckle over, to evoke as off-beat counsel when I didn’t know what to do. Now I could remember to “Lean over and look at my stick shift,” and I could remind myself that, “You can never have too many Toyotas.”