The circle of life has made a 180 a few times.

I’ve had weeks when I pondered the Circle of Life more deeply than usual. My van was stolen from our driveway in broad daylight a few years back, twenty feet from where I was sitting. I didn’t even notice. This is either positive commentary on my powers of concentration, or an insight into my lack of observational skills.

I phoned the police immediately, and they returned the favor by showing up three hours later to take the report.

I figured my GPS unit had been stolen, but didn’t think my CDs, which include selections by Doris Day and Matt Munro, were the motivation for the theft unless it was the Over the Hill Gang who’d jacked my car.

There were also boxes in the back of the van full of old clothing slated for donation to a thrift store.  They’d been tossed as if The Mob had chosen our house for a hit because they needed clothes and a getaway Mom Van.

Could naked people be on the loose? They would definitely need a ride, if there are.

By the time the police arrived, my hubby had taken the spare key, gone in search of the van and found it two blocks away in an apartment parking lot.

He drove it home, and when I called the precinct to tell them to call off their City Wide Search, they became quite agitated.

He could have been Pulled From the Vehicle and Arrested, they rebuked. I considered replying that the thieves would be very fortunate to have the police On Hand to see us take our own vehicle, but preserve a prolonged absence when it was stolen.

I did not say this, and gave myself a pat on the back for restraint and discretion.

That doesn’t happen often with me, especially since with age and retirement there are no great consequences for saying what I think. With great age, comes no responsibility at all.

I suspect most maturity is just for show until such a time as people can bow to inclination rather than expediency.  This is why the elderly are seen as cantankerous. I know I’m frequently irritable and cranky, but to be cantankerous is the Cadillac of moods.

It isn’t a fleeting state of mind, but a way of life.

I was ready to grab the thieves whose hideout had been pinpointed by them parking the stolen vehicle in the lot outside their apartment, and who could be spotted no doubt because they’d be wearing my old clothes.

We would grab the perps by waiting outside their apartment and then jump on them, pulling hemp sacks over their heads, and we’d Drive Through the Night to a frontier town where we could exact Frontier Justice.

I did not carry out this plan, mainly because my hubby refused to help me, but I continued to watch passersby in the neighborhood to see if I recognized an old shirt or shoes.

When I did get my wheels back, I reflected that age is more than giving in to immature impulses.

Auto Erotica now means having wheels and a full tank of gas. It positively makes me shiver, especially the full tank of fuel part. I haven’t had a full tank since I stopped working.

A mechanically-minded website named Auto Erotica would feature cute cars fluttering those fake eyelashes on their headlights. The cars would have open doors and hoods, and be Up On Jacks. I can hear the idle speeding up even as we speak.

After these Walter Mitty like interludes, I went on to do my shopping and having more unprofitable human encounters.

At the library as I parked, an older man in a sports car asked me if I had jumper cables. I did not, and he said he didn’t think I would as I Am A Woman. The rationale for this remark eluded me since He Is A Man and didn’t have cables either, and was in fact, the one who needed them.

On my way into the library I met a man who was exiting, dressed in a blue mini skirt, short little jacket, and a Russian fur hat. I thought he was a little too old for a mini skirt, but if he wanted to wear one, God bless. He could at least have shaved his legs.

On my way out of the library, I signed a petition for two Young Things who were collecting signatures to legalize marijuana. I signed it and then told them that I thought all drugs should be legalized in order to tax them, assure their safety, and keep the jail space free for insider traders.

One Young Thing said, “Oh no, some drugs shouldn’t be legalized!”

I was left pondering the odd juxtaposition of generations and How They Think. Pollsters should hang out at the library for sociological experiments.

The older man was staying true to form, but the Young Things sure surprised me. I had just returned a copy of Philip Roth’s novel about generational conflict, ‘Goodbye Columbus’ and was pleased that Life Had Mimicked Art.

These encounters at the library justified learning Reading and Writing, especially since I’m revealing my library encounters here. I have never achieved balancing my checking account, so justifying ‘Rithmetic hasn’t yet occurred in my lifetime.

Still later at a store, another Young Thing saw the small library card on my key ring that’s used for self-check out. She asked whether the library was still open as she had supposed technology had Replaced It By Now.

I paused a moment, wondering if I’d driven through a temporal distortion and had wandered Into the Future. After watching months of old Star Trek episodes, anything appeared to be possible.

I thought about all the branches of the library, realized I’d just been to one (or had  I?) and had already experienced two temporal distortions in the persons of Sports Car Man and Young Petitioners.

I then told her politely that the “Library was still open as far as I know.”

(If I was mistaken, I had become the default owner of thirty library books piled in a corner of my bedroom.)

How many times had I asked a Young Thing to help me with technology, and was now helping a Young Thing understand how technology had Not Yet replaced the library?

The Circle of Life is a fascinating thing.

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