Author: Sheri Pardini

About once a month or so my husband, Kim, and I travel east across a stretch of I-75 known as Alligator Alley. What a great name for a road! I did a little checking on how it got that name and I was disappointed there wasn’t a fabulously exciting story of how the road construction crew had to take turns guarding each other’s backs from a sneak attack by the many alligators that live in this deep, thick, jungle of sawgrass, cypress, and swamps. Instead, AAA labeled it that. They hated the road. They didn’t want it built. Even after reading why, I’m still not sure why. They wanted their customers to go around it, taking the Tamiami Trail to Miami instead of Alligator Alley to Ft. Lauderdale. Their reasons were a bit vague, convoluted and undoubtedly dry, but that isn’t important. What’s important is they gave it that name to discourage its use, while the State Road Commission officially adopted it, saying it would be good for tourism.

That was back in the 60’s. Alligator Alley cuts through the heart of the Florida Everglades. The road is amazing straight and flat, bordered both sides by a fence to protect the animals that live there from cars zooming by at 75 mph. Some faster…a lot faster, but the speed limit is 70, so I’m going to say 75. This mostly works, but not always. I’ve seen a few dead critters; armadillo, a wild pig, a couple of turtles, and the latest find, a very large python! I’ve read in the paper about a bear being hit out there and from time to time a Florida panther. There are 36 tunnels under this 75 mile stretch of road, so the animals can move freely from side to side. Though that fence is pretty high and looks fairly sturdy I have seen animals on the road side of it. I have no idea how they got there.

Do not be fooled into thinking that because the road is flat and straight it’s boring. Though it doesn’t offer breathtaking views of massive snow-covered peaks and sprawling green meadows it is like stepping back in time. Way back. From our home the Alley begins with palm trees, slash pines and dense vegetation too numerous to count or identify. It’s not long before you encounter the Florida Panther Preserve. These cats look just like their western mountain lion cousins, only a little smaller. They are distinct, however, by their crooked tail. Though they are endangered I do wonder if there aren’t more of them than they think, because a fair number have already been killed this year on the roads near and around Naples. Something isn’t adding up and my own belief, backed by no science or fact, is that life finds a way and the swamp harbors life invisible to the eyes of man. Try as I might, I have yet to see one of these rare creatures lazily napping in the branches of any nearby tree, but I keep looking. Odd looking conifers begin to appear known as bald cypress. These trees lose their needles in the fall, which is unusual for a pine, but hence the name, “Bald”. When bald they appear to be dead.  Fully leafed out they provide a beautiful canopy to the Everglades where you can easily spot large birds roosting amid their branches. It’s also along this strand of highway that you encounter Big Cypress National Preserve, which I have yet to explore, but it’s on the list. In what appears to be a seamless transition, the trees begin to fall away and the vistas widen as you travel further east and you now begin to encounter the famous sawgrasses of the Everglades. You might wonder if this is what the savannahs of Africa might also look like.

The birds are amazing! Winter and spring the trees are heavy, bearing their ornaments of ibis, great egrets, great blue herons, great herons, osprey, bald eagles, cormorants, spoonbills, and anhingas. Those are just a few! They’re big and beautiful and my head swivels constantly at the sight of another and another. So different! So fascinating!

Alligator Alley is home to black bears, white tail deer, wild pigs, turkeys, mink, river otters, gray foxes, opossum, and panthers. In fact, there are 40 different mammals who make their home in the Everglades. Shall we talk about the snakes? Let’s not! The point is, this place is wild.

Water is ever-present. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but it’s there and because of that you strain your eyes, if you’re not driving, searching the canals that border the road looking for those creatures of the past and present for which this road was named. Alligators! I find it difficult to see alligators in the water while flying past at 75 mph, which is where they spend most of their time in the summer. But in the winter, alligators like to bask in the warm sunshine along the banks of those canals and it doesn’t take much effort to see a dozen or so of these famous tough guys synonymous with the state of Florida.

For all the water out there it can burn and lightning seems to use it for target practice almost every day during the summer rainy season. I feel for the wildland firefighters who have to penetrate the jungle swamp with all of its inhabitants in the unrelenting steaming heat that can only be summer in south Florida.

The Everglades is not an impenetrable wilderness swamp, but almost and teeming with life from the beautiful to the scary. When they built Alligator Alley the engineers were faced with using airboats on the eastern side and swamp buggies on the western to line out the route. A note written by a construction worker on the wall of an outbuilding in the Alley wrote, “Please Lord, I’ve been a good man. So if I get cotton-mouth bit, or attacked by some of Oscar the Alligator’s brothers, and if I get to that Big Job in the Sky, oh, please, Lord, let it be on dry land. Amen!” ( Alligator Alley: Florida’s Most Controversial Highway, by August Burghard, 1969).

Bottom line, I like it. I never get tired of it, even though it’s straight and flat and a shot of espresso halfway across might be nice. There’s always something to see out there, or something to be looking for. An amazing place like none other.

(Photo credit given to Ben Pardini)

My husband and I got caught in the rain today. It’s been a long time since that’s happened. By the time we briskly walked the short distance from the pool to our apartment we were drenched beyond the drenching of the pool where we had been swimming only moments earlier. Now laughing, we wondered if it could possibly rain any harder before we climbed the stairs to the front door? Why, yes it can! It reminded me of a distant time when I got caught in the rain with my kids.

It was 2007. A two car caravan. I, with my son, leading the way. My daughter following behind. Her car bulging with her college possessions. We were traveling south on I-95, from Melbourne to Boca Raton, when suddenly warning lights flashed all sorts of red across the dash of Ben’s car! I quickly changed three lanes of traffic, an impressive feat I assure you, and coasted into the corner gas station.

We would have to wait for a mechanic to figure out the problem before we could be on our way. I don’t wait well! I had a better plan. Let’s all squeeze into Mariah’s Suzuki and go to Target. Might as well take care of a few things while we are waylaid. “I’ll drive”. That left one seat to be filled by two occupants. Although clearly illegal, and obviously uncomfortable, I was confident they’d be able to figure out how to puzzle arms and legs together to make it work. Surely at least one of them was wearing a seatbelt! We didn’t have far to go. Upon our arrival I unashamed left them in the parking lot to figure out how to untangle themselves. They were, after all, attracting attention and embarrassing me!

As we prepared to leave the store it was raining! Raining really isn’t a big enough word for the avalanche of water spilling from the sky. Mariah ran to get her car as Ben and I huddled on the only postage stamp spot available in an effort to stay reasonably dry. She pulled up and we crammed even more stuff into her already jam-packed car. I switched places with her, securing myself behind the wheel. You don’t think that just because she shagged the car in the rain she was going to boost that enviable position? Well do you? Not happening! These two grown kids were far more capable of playing Front Seat Twister than I was! Regrettably, they were now playing it with an audience of all the other patrons who were standing under the eaves considering a dash to their cars. “We’ve got this! Nothing to see here!” We laughed! We laughed at our situation. We laughed at being soaked to the skin. We laughed at one more thing being added to our out-of-control day. We laughed at the sight that we made. We laughed that other people were laughing, even if it was at us, not with us. We laughed so hard it hurt and I needed my inhaler!

Later than evening, having unloaded Mariah’s possessions into her dorm room and finally being able to take a moment, we enjoyed dinner together at the Cheesecake Factory. Looking around I spied a woman sitting in an adjoining room who I thought looked a lot like me, but was obviously having a bad hair day. She looked as though she had spent as much time in the rain as I had. I pointed her out to the kids. They looked at each other and then said, “Mom, that’s a mirror”!

I was sitting here at my desk the other day when my cat quietly appeared next to me and began meowing for my attention. I reached down and gently scratched between her ears, wondering when the look of sheer bliss in her half closed eyes would suddenly change and she would swing her head with cat-like reflexes and bite my hand!? I’m not saying she would do it. I’m just saying she could do it. And in the past she has done it! I don’t know why! Just some wild hair she gets. She’s a cat!

Cats are funny creatures. Once upon a time we owned two dogs and two cats. Copper, Chinook, Sophie, and Patches respectively. Our huskies were gentle giants and allowed our cats to co-mingle with them like any other pack member. As a kitten, our youngest cat, Patches would climb onto the back and head of our biggest dog, but as she grew she developed an attitude and was determined to be top dog. Ahem, I mean cat.

Patches would lie in wait on the back of the sofa for an opportunity to take a swipe at anyone who dared walk within striking distance of her paw, with the exception of our daughter. She perceived Mariah as her mother, since it was she who allowed Patches to sleep on her bed as a kitten when all other pets were banned from that particular piece of furniture. I would give Patches a wide berth if she was perched on the back of the sofa, pretending she was preoccupied with thoughts of tuna. In reality she was sizing up the prey and I was determined not to be caught in her web of deception. My husband was either too engrossed in his thoughts or oblivious to her intent, because he was always passing too closely resulting in a claw to the forearm and a trip to the bathroom for antiseptic.

Patches loved to chase Sophie. Sophie was older than Patches, but Patches outweighed her by 5 pounds. Sophie didn’t find Patches’ game of cat and mouse amusing and would take refuge underneath Copper’s legs. Copper was a beautiful husky. A throwback to his ancestors, with long legs and long snout. He had an intimidating look about him. The older Patches got the more she was instinctually afraid of him, though he never snapped, growled, or even barked. Somehow Sophie knew this and learned to take refuge in his presence. Copper was her home base and there was little Patches could do about it.

When Mariah left for college we worried about Patches. How would she adjust to not having Mariah around. She had no choice but to adapt. She needed to adopt a new protector. Who did she choose? My husband. Her usual target for “batting” practice! I couldn’t believe it! The man who I swore she hated had now become her “go to” favorite. If Kim sat down Patches took it as an invitation to climb on him. Sitting on his lap wasn’t enough. She needed to slowly climb up his chest until she had her head resting on his shoulder. What had happened here?

What had happened is what always happens. Things change. Copper, Chinook, and Sophie have all passed away leaving only paw prints in our hearts. Patches is older now, but like all of us still needs to feel safe, to be comforted, to be loved. She is all those things. She’s a little more mellow than she use to be and sleeps a little more often. But, every once in a while she will take a quick swipe, or let out a warning hiss just to let us know….she is still a cat!

Oh my gosh! The things we could get done if we would just stay focused! Am I right? Of course I’m right. I use to tell my kids that all the time when they were in school. “Stay on task and you’ll get it finished in no time!” I noticed a similar problem around the property we live on. The maintenance crew is great, but they are easily distracted, leaving a few too many projects in progress and even fewer completed. So, what do I do, besides criticize? Flit about from one project or chore to the next. The next thing you know the day is done, but nothing else is!

Why do we do that? We all do it! Okay…maybe not all, but most of us. It’s not like we don’t enjoy what we do. We gain a lot of satisfaction from our work. Sometimes we just don’t feel like working. Sometimes we’re overwhelmed. So, instead I start my day with a swim, which of course has to be followed by a shower, naturally it is now time for lunch, which is followed by a break to check my emails. Now I’m tired, so perhaps a nap and then a snack….whoa! Where did the day go? It’s time to fix supper! I can always work on writing tomorrow! And so it goes.

I don’t care what your job is. How much you like or dislike it. Whether you’re task oriented or a world class procrastinator we are all subject to distractions. You check your emails and then your Facebook page. “Like this, like this, like that!” Get a cup of coffee, bathroom break, check out what the co-workers did over the weekend, find out what they are doing this weekend, get up to speed on your “Trivia Crack” games, send a couple of texts. The clock is ticking my friend! We have work to do! Let’s try to have something to show for it!

I know some of you have jobs that do require you finish what you start. My son is a flight instructor. There’s no getting distracted there! It won’t end well. My son-in-law works with asphalt. I think he may have been a little too focused once and didn’t notice he was on fire! (Another story). Most of us, though, have to work at it. I give myself little rewards for following through with a project start to finish. I have to. Life is just to interesting to not become distracted.

The 4th of July is upon us and I’ve been noticing that Americans are a funny lot. We’re much like a family. We fight and criticize one another. Roll our eyes, even pout, but if somebody outside the family criticizes us, or attacks us in any way we circle the wagons! It is family first!

This weekend we will gather with family and friends in parks, backyards, beaches, campgrounds, national parks, lakes and  main streets across the country to celebrate who we are….Americans! We will have picnics and barbecues, wave flags, cheer at parades, eat homemade ice cream, hot dogs and watermelon,  and when the sun sets on a practically perfect day we will find a chair, a patch of grass, a piece of beach to gaze upon fireworks in all their glory. When it’s over we will carry sleepy children, gather up blankets and spent sparklers with quiet smiles and warm hearts to match the summer heat, making our way back home.

Lately, though, some of us have ventured a bit far off the family farm. We explain to outsiders, “Oh, that’s just Uncle Fred. He’s a bit crazy. Just pass him the potato salad”.  Our tempers flare with each other and like all families we fight, slam doors, leave the room, don’t talk to each other. I shake my head at my fellow Americans who see our country differently than I. They shake their head at me.

Together though, together we make a difference. Together we are different. We’re the first to offer aid in a global disaster. We feed the world and even have satellites in place to see where we should focus our efforts for upcoming drought and famine. We are the world’s peace keepers and the world’s warriors. We tenaciously defend our liberties, but what is unique about us….we defend the liberties of others around the world.

The principles set out in the Constitution allow us to govern ourselves morally, which then allows us to govern ourselves politically. Those people around the world who endeavor to be free look to the United States as a mighty beacon of hope. For that reason I am proud to be an American. I am grateful to be an American because I am free.

Enjoy this weekend! Unite in red, white, and blue, celebrating Old Glory and all that she stands for. Monday will come soon enough. Then we can scream, shout, slam doors, and make excuses for Uncle Fred. But, on the 4th of July, we’re family! We’re Americans! God bless the USA!

We are creatures of habit. We like consistency and familiarity. It makes us comfortable. We may step out of the box, at least with one foot, to do something new once in a while, or explore new places, but make a game changing shake up? Are you kidding? Why do you think McDonald’s is so successful? It was marketed on the premise that it’s familiar no matter where you are in the world. It’s comfortable.

Change is harder for some than others. My daughter handles big changes in her life with amazing grace and enthusiasm, but when her husband organized her earrings to make her life easier you would have thought he changed her cell phone number! Then she says to me, “I really don’t mind change.” Really? How about I rearrange your furniture? My son is “Mr. Sentimental”, so any change in his life is met with a flow chart of possibilities and probabilities. My husband and I have been toting around boxes of his stuff and storing them for years because he doesn’t have room for them at his place, but he can’t bear to part with them either. Don’t judge us! He’s our son, but I swear the free storage is coming to an end….soon! Very soon!

I walk counterclockwise around the pond every morning. Occasionally I will give in to my husband’s suggestion that we walk clockwise for a change. My whining about it is met with his sarcastic remarks about understanding how it’s so much harder to walk clockwise. After all, “it is uphill that direction.”  Seriously! It’s Florida! It’s not uphill in any direction and he’s lucky I’m wearing sunglasses so he can’t see the narrowing of my eyes as I glare at him, but I’m sure he senses it! The truth is, it just doesn’t feel right. It’s like sleeping on the wrong side of the bed. You know what I’m talking about.

The landscapers are at work around our place. Vegetation grows in Florida like the real life version of Jumanji, so if you don’t take serious action you’ll need a machete in no time just to find your car. But, give a man a chainsaw and he suddenly becomes Paul Bunyan’s smaller sidekick! Branches are dropping, palms have new haircuts, what was once dense is now not! I don’t like it! Why? It’s different!

We get use to things the way they are, but the changes that are being made to the landscape around here actually look nice. Thinning the vegetation allows more sunlight to feed and nourish those plants left behind. It’s healthy for them, making a case that change is actually good for all of us. It allows us to grow. Change doesn’t mean leaving everything behind. It’s just moving on. Change is hard, but it means we’re alive, and that’s all good.

Summer is here. Our first summer in south Florida. I know what you’re thinking! “Aargh! The humidity!” And you’d be right! It’s not like we were unaware. We’ve been here before in the heart of summer, but we’ve never been here for the duration where it begins to sit heavy on your chest, back, and legs like an elephant who has decided it’s time for you to give him a ride! Movies like Mosquito Coast, Apocalypse Now, and African Queen come to mind. Do you have a visual yet? Even the plants seem to groan under the weight of the Florida summer sauna.

I’ve noticed it take longer to get from my car into the store. I feel like I’m walking in slow motion, slogging through thick quicksand and the store is a mirage that keeps getting farther away the closer you get. You step outside for a few minutes and the ability to take a deep breath has evaporated! That’s the only thing that has evaporated!!! This isn’t Phoenix you know, where everything evaporates and you can’t even tell you’re sweating! Here you know you are sweating, I think! I haven’t decided if I’m sweating or it’s just that the water in the air has found a place to puddle…under your eyes, on your shirt, behind your knees. You get the picture. Don’t even bother hanging a beach towel over a chair outside to dry. It could take days for that to happen, perhaps even an entire season! You step back inside and suddenly you’re freezing! It’s not that the A/C is turned too cool. It’s that you’re wet!

I was here once in August helping my daughter move. By the end of the day I thought I was shrinking. Simply melting into a puddle on the ground. I had to be, because my t-shirt was now down to my knees. I could have been wearing it as a dress! Who moves furniture in a dress? What was happening!? It was that trip where I made a side excursion to Phoenix on my way back to Colorado. I was actually excited about the experiment I was about to set out on. An opportunity to see what was more uncomfortable, 92 degrees with 87% humidity, or 112 degrees with 9% humidity? I couldn’t tell. It was just different and equally miserable!

My husband often walks outside and exclaims, “It’s not too bad!” I haven’t decided if he’s making an observation or trying to convince himself it could be worse. It definitely could be worse and it just might get worse! I don’t want to jinx anything just in case Mother Nature overhears and decides to let me see just how bad she can be!

Thank goodness for air conditioning and swimming pools! I grew up in the Valley of the Sun without climate control in our house or in our car. I was in the 5th grade when we bought a house with central air conditioning for the first time! The lap of luxury that we now come to expect and take for granted. That’s right! I was tough! Now I’m spoiled! I have a car with air conditioning, a home with air conditioning, stores with air conditioning. I can hopscotch from one to the other and if that is not enough I’m off to the pool or the beach. I’m good with being spoiled!

Which is better or more miserable, depending on how you look at it? A dry heat or a humid heat? I feel for my family in Phoenix. It’s been 113 degrees, plus or minus all week long! That kind of heat is intense! It’s hot, sizzling, scorching, blazing! This time of year Florida is hot, sultry, sweltering, steamy! Feel the difference?

There are some amazing people in the world! True thinkers not contained by any box. Like the engineers that went to work to bring back the astronauts of Apollo 13. We don’t even know their names. Disney Imagineers, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, Elon Musk, Madame Curie, and people you’ve never heard of but know by their inventions, like Bette Graham (Liquid Paper), Stephanie Kwolek (Kevlar), and Mary Anderson (windshield wipers). There are so many more. These people are simply amazing! You know what they all have in common? None of them attended year round school! What? How can that be possible? What about the “Summer Slide”?

The “Summer Slide” is one of my big pet peeves. The idea of it irritates me and I find it personally insulting. The Summer Slide insinuates that I am as dumb as dirt, as are the people who grew up just like me, enjoying a summer full of nothing but free time!

The summer slide theory is that during summer break kids slide academically, resulting in the need for remedial work when they return in the fall just to get them back to the level where they left off in May. How much slide depends on who is doing the study and their agenda, but generally it’s 2 months. Apparently the kids most at risk for sliding are low-income, because they don’t have access to the organized summer camps that the more affluent have. That slide doesn’t end with a slip in academics. Some fear that summer vacation also results in weight gain, especially for those children that are already fighting the battle of the bulge. Good grief!

I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s. You only went to summer school if you failed to keep up during the school year and that didn’t seem to have anything to do with economic standing. It depended more on how much you messed around during the school year. My summer was filled with reading, swimming, playing ball, watching tv, playing with friends, irritating my sisters, and probably irritating my mother. I slept in, stayed up late, babysat for the neighbors, rode my bike, used my imagination, the list goes on. The most important part…the days were my own to do with as I wished.

We were not well off, though I never felt like we were poor, even when we didn’t have things. I did not go to summer camp, or to fancy day camps. That’s not to say I never had an opportunity for organized activities. I remember a couple of weeks of a parks and recreation arts and crafts class one summer, another summer I attended a week-long church camp, and for two weeks I attended a band camp for kids of all ages and economic background. That was pretty much the extent of organized anything.

What I did have was a mother who took us to the library and let us check out 10 books apiece. Remember that place? It’s a building filled with books that anyone can take and read. It’s amazing and it’s free!!! I had sisters and I had friends. I’m pretty sure that describes most kids and we could find plenty to do that didn’t require money.

During the school year you hear parents complain of too much homework, too many activities, not enough down time for our kids to just be kids and then we turn around and champion year round school! Why? Cheap babysitting? Down time is what it takes to allow the imagination to get out of the box it gets stored in during the school year and stretch its legs! Summer is for discovery, experiments, dreaming without being restrained by the ticking of the clock. We can exercise our brains without the confines of right or wrong answers. Those people I mentioned before…that’s what they did on their summer vacation, so when it really mattered, they could make it count!

Our kids are young for such a short time. How about for just a little while we afford them time to just be little kids. Let them play, let them imagine, let them dream, so one day they will know how to dream big and make amazing things happen.

A friend of mine once told me, “Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst”. Monday, June 1, was the official beginning of hurricane season and though a hurricane hasn’t hit Florida since 2005 it’s not of matter of if, it’s a matter of when. I plan to be prepared. I’m not really a wind person, so when you tell me we are entering the season of the most powerful storm on earth you’ve got my attention!

I’ve experienced Mother Nature during some of her moodiest moments, from haboobs in Arizona, earthquakes in Wyoming and California, to wildfires and blizzards in Colorado. Hurricanes are new to me. I find big weather a bit terrifying! A hurricane can be 600 miles across with sustained winds greater than 157 mph. It will usually last for over a week before dying a natural death. Water is the biggest killer as hurricanes mark their territory with storm surge, high surf, rip currents, and inland flooding. Then there is the destructive winds and if that isn’t enough for you, they spawn tornadoes! 101 tornadoes were formed by Hurricane Francis before she met her demise! Mother Nature does a good job at getting your attention and if you fail to take notice you may be reminded in the harshest ways that you are very small indeed.

When our son was accepted to college in Florida we immediately thought of the vacation opportunities, but we also did the math on the hurricane strike probabilities. We figured that in 4 years he may get hit once. Hmmm. Visions of Disney World, NASA, and Key West danced through my head and overrode our concerns. Besides, I was never really any good at math and our equation could be way off. In fact, before he graduated in 4 years he had encountered three hurricanes…Frances, Jeanne, and Wilma. The first hit within 2 weeks of starting school and the second 3 weeks later. By the time Wilma hit the following year he was a pro and Jim Cantore of the Weather Channel was my new best friend! Our law of probabilities were all off and possibilities morphed into reality. I became proficient at scaling the back of the couch, hurdling the coffee table, and vaulting over the kitchen table to get to the phone as it rang in hopes our son was calling to let us know what was happening and assure us he was safe.

Our daughter, by contrast, made her move to Florida 2 years later, graduated, found a job and has never left the Sunshine State. She has been here 9 years and though she has sat through plenty of tropical storms, she has yet to endure the full power of a hurricane. I’m good with that, but it can’t last.

What was I thinking when I suggested to my husband that we move to Florida?! You’d at least think we would have waited till the state had taken another mathematical hit! Sort of a big storm law of reducing your odds, but no! We charged ahead knowing that Florida is due for another weather reckoning just by the law of averages. So, here we are, one week into hurricane season. All is quiet, but as requested by state officials and common sense I am prepared, physically. Mentally? Well that’s another story. You never know until you face the big bad wolf as he tries to blow your house down.

What’s with those annoying car alarms? They are always sounding off around 5:00 a.m. or during Mass, or practically anytime you really don’t want them too. The reason I know this is my neighbor’s alarm has given us all a wake up call the last three mornings!

To all you habitual car alarm setters, I don’t think they do what you think they do! They’re suppose to scare off any would be car thief, but we’re so conditioned into believing that the alarm is an accident I’d be surprised if a good Samaritan actually hasn’t helped a car thief get the darn thing shut off and on his merry way in your car!

I don’t use mine. I don’t even know how to set it. What I do know is if I did, I would never figure out how to disarm it, and then I will be one of “those” people! Have you noticed that? Is there a special code, or sequence required to turn it off? Everyone seems to fumble with that part. One click for on, 4 pages of instructions on how to get it off!

Who invented this thing that seemed like a good idea, but had unintended consequences? Well, it turns out it was a convict in Denver in 1913. Hmmm….didn’t say what he was in prison for. And how many cars were there in 1913 that stealing them was an issue? Like somebody wouldn’t notice that the only car in the neighborhood was missing and now you’re driving it?! I wasn’t able to find out who decided to make alarms standard in cars today. Probably classified. Who decided it was a good idea to make them so sensitive that if you sneezed while walking by they would start honking and flashing lights as if you had just won a huge jackpot in Vegas, only you didn’t! You did win the stares of passersby judging you for not knowing how to disarm your alarm. “It’s not my car!!!!”

My son and I accidentally discovered a very effective anti-theft device. Of course it only works if you are short, which fortunately I am. Too bad for you. When Ben graduated from college he and I packed up his car with all his college belongings and set off for home, via Washington D.C. I figured I’d be doing most of the driving and he would do the navigating. He’s quite good with maps. So, I put the seat where I needed it to be and then packed, shoved, and squeezed things into the back seat and trunk. What was left over got left behind. When we ran into car trouble in North Carolina we stopped at the service center at Wal-Mart. Have you ever noticed how tall people are in North Carolina? Giant-like really and they insisted that I could not drive that car into their service bay. They had to do it. Not going to happen! Oh, they tried, but I’m 5 ft tall.  There wasn’t a single guy in that shop that was under 6 ft and that seat wasn’t going to budge back for nothing! Nobody could get in it! Rules are rules, so they worked on that car right where I left it. Out in the hot, steamy sun! As long as the thief is taller than you are and you’re using your back seat as a storage unit, you are golden!

My suggestion, get The Club, or get a club. Worked for Teddy Roosevelt. The first option is less confrontational, the second more satisfying. Probably more prudent to go with the first. Hey, this is America. Do what you will, but if your alarm goes off by accident, and it will, I reserve my right to roll my eyes at you.