I’m not really good at fixing things and I’m not ashamed to admit it. It doesn’t make me less of a man, besides I do lots of manly things like burp, fart, and scratch and I can do those things well, thank you very much. I’ve established in other posts that I’m just not the type of guy who can go to builder’s square, home depot, or whatever other manly store that sells building supplies and tools, buy supplies then add a room to the house. I’m not even the type of guy who can work on my car and fix any problems that arise with it, so if anything happens to the car I just take it in and have someone work on it - and again, I’m not ashamed to admit that.

Well, for almost as long as I’ve had my car I’ve had the left headlight out. It’s never really been a problem and I never really thought much about it because I’ve seen many other cars out there with only one headlight. As I drive paste one I flash my one light at the other driver and more times than not they flash their lone light at me. It makes me feel like I’m part of a group, like I belong to some secret society of drivers with only one headlight. I’d like to call that group - The Secret Society of Drivers With Only One Headlight - Hey, I never said I was original. Well, anyway, I never really thought much about the headlight until my friend Deaf Joe came to visit from one of those Northern states where everyone drives with two headlights.

When I refer to him as “Deaf Joe” it’s not meant in anyway to be derogatory, it’s just that I know a lot of Joe’s and so I started adding adjectives in front of their names. I know a “Deaf Joe”, a “Crazy Joe”, a “Lil’ Joe”, a “Wild Oats Joe”, a “Fat Joe”, a “Skinny Joe”, a “Loco Joe” and I have an “Uncle Joe” - so using the name “Deaf Joe” is just a way to identify which Joe I’m talking about. The important thing Is that “Deaf Joe” doesn’t find it offensive, so neither should anyone else, so please not hate messages.

One of the first things “Deaf Joe” asked me was if I loved my car. I thought about that question for a little while, did he mean if I loved my car or if I LOVED my car, which is much like when you’re a kid and you ask someone if they love pizza and when they say that they love pizza you answer with “…then why don’t you marry it?” The question put me more on the defensive than I’d like to admit. I finally answered with yes I love my car because it gets me from here to there. Deaf Joe then said that if I loved my car why didn’t I wash it or get the headlight fixed. Hummm, those were both good question.

I like to think that I’m conserving water by not washing my car - I live in the desert and we have special days that we can water our grass and on those days we only have a short time span that we can water, so I figure that washing a car would be really bad. I could take it to one of those automatic car washes but I don’t think they do a very good job so rather than have a half dirty, spotty car - I’d much rather have a fully dirty car. I don’t do half-assed stuff, thank you very much.

Deaf Joe said he could fix the light for me and it wouldn’t be any trouble, so I agreed to let him try. I gave him the brand new tools I got for Christmas and let him go at it. Before I knew it he had taken apart half my front end and still could not get to the light. He wrote me a message saying that we should take the car to an AutoZone so they could fix it - as I said before, Joe is deaf, so we communicate by writing notes back and forth because the little sign language that I know is not enough to hold a conversation unless I’m telling him that he’s my bitch - which I can sign very well. He wrote that it’s their job at Autozone to do things like this and that they like to do them. We drove to Autozone where Joe wrote a message to the guy at the counter, who came out and worked on the car. Maybe Joe was right, those guys at Autozone really do like do fix stuff on cars. Well, the guy pulled more stuff from my car and then told me that he couldn’t fix the light because a small metal piece that holds the light in place had gotten so hot that it just melted off. I guess it was ok, because I never used that light anyway. The only problem I had was that after Joe tried to fix my headlight my brake lights stopped working. The bad thing about Deaf Joe is that he’s deaf, so I couldn’t even yell at him about it - he wouldn’t have heard me.

I really wasn’t mad at Joe, I’m just kidding - he did try to fix it and as far as the light I’ve never had a problem with it to justify getting it fixed - until the other night. I was driving to one of the local casinos for dinner when I saw a police car driving the opposite way that I was. I watched in the review mirror as the cop made a U-turn and started to follow me. It didn’t take long for the cop to turn on the flashing lights. I like to think that I’m a safe driver but sometimes I do forget to put on my safety belt and this was one of those times. I tried to pull over to the side of the road and put my seat belt on without calling too much attention to the fact that I was trying to put my seat belt on. I’m not the most coordinated guy, so I as I was trying to put on my safety belt I sort of drove up on the curb in front of a church then drove off it before I finally stopped.

The officer came up to the window and shinned his flashlight in the car - I was a little embarrassed that the car was a mess, but you don’t get tickets for driving a messy car. He told me that he had pulled me over because I only had one headlight. He then asked me for my driver’s license, insurance and registration. I pulled out my envelope from the glove box labeled “Stuff I need when the fascist pigs stop me” It has any and all the paperwork I would ever need in this sort of situation. The cop looked at the envelope and I tried to hide the words “fascist pigs” with my hand as I pulled out the insurance card. The cop didn’t even take the card he looked at it while it was still in my hand and said, “it’s expired. Do you have another one with a current date at the top?”

“Huh?“ I asked dumbfounded. I don’t know why there was an expired card in my envelope, but there was. I looked and found a card that was not expired and handed him the card and my ID. He did that macho cop-walk as he walked back to the cop car. I wasn’t really worried because I hadn’t done anything illegal, but as more and more time passed I began to wonder and worry. It was taking too long for this to be just a regular warning type of stop. I wondered if I had written any hot checks or if I had any outstanding tickets I had forgotten to pay. I even wondered if I had stolen any office supplies from work. Maybe they caught me on camera taking something from work. I would go to jail for five to ten years for stealing “white out” and “post-it” notes.

When the cop finally came back to the car I was about to get out and let him cuff me. I was ready to do the time, but he said, “I’m going to let you off with a warning this time, but you need to get that light fixed. You have to be driving with two headlights like everyone else is.” At that time I noticed a car drive by with only one headlight, but didn’t bring it to the cop’s attention - it was better that way.

I thanked the cop and took a deep breath feeling like everything was right in the world. I started to pull out into the street when the cop flashed his lights at me again. I stopped and waited as the cop came to my window again. I rolled down the window and looked up at the cop as he asked, “Did you know your brake lights aren’t working either?”