justwrite 4 november

The old blue Toyota lurches uphill into the driveway and Harry puts it in park and sets the parking brake before getting out to open the garage door. There used to be a garage door opener. Now it’s Harry. That’s fine. It makes his daughter crazy, but it’s not like she lives there anymore, so there. Elsewhere, so to speak.

The rickety garage door doesn’t always stay up, so Harry wastes no time pulling the car onto the grease spot slightly to the left of the center of the cement floor. For your reference, this car used to be called Turtle. Harry’s daughter called it this some time ago, though mainly because she wanted a turtle as a pet and Harry’s wife had said no. The fact that turtles are rarely blue had not interfered with Andrea’s decision to name her father’s car Turtle. The last time she referred to this car as Turtle was two years and three months ago. At the time, she had a boyfriend who had a pet turtle. His name was Josh. Josh was now a thing of the past, along with his turtle. Or was the turtle’s name Josh? It really doesn’t matter at this point, I’ll just point out.

Actually, it was the turtle who was named Josh. The boyfriend was Steven. Don’t get hung up on this. I just wanted you to know.