It's a death trap held together with packing tape.

It really is. I'm talking about my car, which Anne has dubbed "Busty". I myself call it "Gimpy". It's a 1989 Honda Civic. It lacks a stereo - there's not even a tape deck. It's manual transmission, one of the side mirrors is broken, the front windshield has these two cracks, the front left signal light is smashed, and there's a huge dent in the same corner as the light. I haven't been motivated to get things fixed, my logic (mistaken, I now must concede) being that if it looks like shit, no one will fuck with it. I keep nothing of value in it - there's some newspapers, some paper bags and a blanket. So why the hell do these punkass kids keep fucking with it?

I live in a fairly safe neighborhood. My house is directly across from a park. There's a high school just around the corner, and when school's not in session, some of the high school kids like to hang in the park, and (rather conspicuously) smoke weed. About a year and a half ago, someone smashed a window and tried to steal my car. They tried to stick a coat hanger in the ignition, and broke off the signal lever. They also rifled through the glove compartment, somehow missing the valet key. There's nothing like incompetent car thieves. Last week, (December 24) I went to move my car to avoid getting a street sweeping ticket since we were going out of town for a few days. I discovered that someone had pried open the driver's side window, and rifled through things, again. I left no valet key in the glove compartment this time, but I did get a nice Christmas present from the Santa punks - a Razor scooter left in my trunk. "Oh we're keeping it. That's a Christmas present!" declared Zack. I've already ridden it around my block several times. It gives me great pleasure to scoot around in front of those kids. Ta-ta, punks!