My kids have a trampoline. Or, I should say, had one.I was in San Francisco with the wife and kids for a few days doing some research for an upcoming book, and, while we were away, a particularly fierce storm hit our little town up in the mountains. From what I was told, before the snows came we had wind gusts of about 70 mph. Well, the gales lifted the kids' trampoline and it flew hundreds of feet through the air and landed squarely down on top of a neighbor's new Mitsubishi Eclipse (a car I am not particularly attracted to, which, nevertheless, emits some kind of rage-inducing pheromones that lure avian trampolines).
What did neighbor-man do? Well, first, he tried to obtain my cell phone number from the lady who had been coming around to feed the horses. But she is one tough horse-sitter and refused to have that information extracted. And, apparently, neighbor-dude had seen the same admonitory Jeff Corwin documentary concerning the dangers of disengaging a copulating trampoline as I had (I think I was drinking whiskey at the time), so he left it on top of the ugly little car until I flew back home. Three days later. He said he wanted to leave it there because he didn't think I'd believe it actually happened.
Belief. That's a funny concept. I believe my insurance company will take care of this. But, then again, I believe in Santa Claus and I believe that in a few months a litter of tiny little convertible-topped hybrids will come gushing from that Mitsubishi's catalytic converter with their little sad headlights turned skyward, asking, "Mommy... where's Daddy?"
My wife and I went out in the snow that night and removed the spent and satisfied trampoline from that tramping trollop of a car.
