Our "Car Friends"

At least once a day when we've been out and about, the boys ask me to drive home through an alternative route in our neighborhood. Although it adds a minute or two to our drive, this special route is important to them because it takes us past our "car friends."

Let me explain.

Some time ago, Silas became enamored with a silver dually truck that we sometimes drove by on our way into the neighborhood. The truck was always parked backwards in its driveway, and always had cool items like ladders in the back of it. Silas and BJ dubbed this truck "Silver Bullet," and Silas occasionally asked that we drive by to "say hello" to Silver Bullet. A few times a week we looked like creepers in my white minivan, pulling up slowly to the bend in the road and stopping so that Silas could have conversations with this truck.

"Hi Silver Bullet!" he'd say. "We just ate dinner, and now I'm going to go play outside! Why is one of your tires in the grass, Silver Bullet? You're silly!" Etc., etc.

Once, the owner of the truck was in his front yard when we stopped, and he waved to us. I rolled my window down and briefly explained the sitch to him, in case he had seen us driving by his house very slowly in recent weeks. He laughed and told Silas to come by anytime.

I wish for my sake that it had all ended with Silver Bullet, but alas it did not. Silver Bullet has since been sold and replaced by another, smaller truck which Silas has named "Black Dart." At some point, George jumped in on the fun too. He bestowed the name "Chon Chon" to the black truck that lives next door to Black Dart. The sports car at the house on the other side of Chon Chon became "Black Wheel," and then next door to Black Wheel we welcomed "Guna." (In case you can't tell from these few examples, my children have serious taste differences in their names for things. Silas, ever the literal one, has a favorite stuffed zebra named Tall Girl. George, with his creative flair, has a favorite stuffed tiger named Yetoon.) The frequency of our drive-by's has intensified from a few times a week to once a day, as the boys look eagerly to see which cars are home and which are out doing their jobs "or getting married or something," as Silas once suggested. Even Van chimes out, "Chon Chon!" as we approach the bend in the road that is the home to our car friends.

From right to left we have Black Dart, Chon Chon with his trailer, Moon, Black Wheel, CatCon, and Red the Smed. Not pictured because they were either out getting married or live further down the street to the left (Lord, yes, it continues) is Guna, Sky, Trailey (a trailer), Six-Wheel, Little Blueberry, Fall Tree and Leaf, Silver Bullet II, The Bean, and Blueberry Strawberry, which is actually a pink car with a teal hatchback. There you have it.

If you're ever wondering why I can't seem to remember important things about our friendship, or your kids' birthdays, or what vacations you recently took, it's because my precious brain space that I would normally save for things like that has now been relegated to completely useless information such as names of the cars on a street at the north end of our neighborhood. My apologies.