Cemetery Street

Five minutes later, Shannie pounded on our front door. "Just James!" Shannie gushed as I answered the door. "You're not going to believe it!" She cried - her cheeks flush in the brisk morning air.

"Happy Birthday Bug," I walked past her and placed my present on the rear bumper.

"My Karma ran over your Dogma," she read the bumper sticker.

"I thought you might like it." My frozen breath tumbled out of my mouth.

"You Knew! You knew I was getting a car?" she said hopping up and down.

Just James just smiled.

"Excellent Eggs!" she said. Our eyes met. Then she kissed me. I mean, she really kissed me.

***

Shannie developed into a connoisseur of bumper stickers; although her car never sported more than one at a time. "I'm not trailer trash and I'm not going to look it! There's no way my car will beshitted and bespeckled by fifty ratty bumper stickers." True to her word, Shannie never let Saphix, her name for the GTI, suffer the indignity of a single worn bumper sticker. On the first Saturday of each month, Shannie would scrap off the old and apply the new. The only exception was during the Gulf War when Saphix sported "Support our troops" for the duration of Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Even then, every first Saturday, Shannie replaced the worn sticker with a newer version. Saphix was socially aware, and never short on sarcasm. In retrospect, Shannie was advertising the state of her psyche. At the time, I didn't know any better, I was curious who she would attack next.

If she couldn't talk her way out of another speeding ticket, the next month's bumper sticker would take a poke at the cops. Her personal favorite was, "D.A.R.E. to keep cops off donuts!" I was partial to, "Bad cop! No Donut!" We both felt, "Hey, who made 7-11 a police station?" was apropos.

Though she lampooned my father once, Shannie assured him he wasn't the target when "Your kid may be an honor student; but you're still an idiot!" made an appearance after I finally made the honor roll. I counted three bumperstickers in my mother's honor: "All dumbs aren't blonde; Worry about your own damn family;" and" We're not the brightest crayon in the box, are we?" When I asked why she insisted on still wasting effort on my mother, she quipped, "She's probably still a bitch?" Her stab at my father was obvious: "Split wood, not atoms!"