She's a junkyard angel and she always gives me bread

My father got a new car, kind of. He's worried about his Jeep Something passing inspection, even though New Jersey loosened its inspection requirements to the point that unless a vehicle's Check Engine light is on and the vehicle is currently on fire it will pass, but it is due and it's leaking oil as if it were seeking a job at BP. Through one of the people he regularly does house-fixing things for --- and one of my mother's co-workers --- he'd arranged a potential barter involving a snowblower he somehow got for free as well as work-in-trade, in exchange for the guy's mother-in-law's no-longer-needed Buick Something.

And so it was I spent an evening driving off to my mother's more distant office, as the co-worker lives about a mile from there, which my father tried to present to me as a break from my nightly exercise regime, apparently unaware that I like exercising and don't like driving. But we pulled in to his driveway and found there was ... nothing there. My father started apologizing for wasting my time going off to find nothing, but we thought to go to the office before, and what do you know, there was the car, and the guy, and all was traded successfully for a week-or-so trial of the car (which I think foredoomed to start with, but that's another ramble).

Since this was the office my mother (who rotates between offices) used that day, you might think she could have brought my father there, by the way. My father says he asked her for a ride, and she refused for obscure reasons of her own. My mother's perspective on this is that my father started to talk about this car which existed and which he might be able to get as barter for the snowblower which he had and didn't need and he'd need to try out the vehicle and it was fine with her co-worker and she finally asked what role she was to play in this transaction, and he said, ``None''. I present both sides without commenting on what I believe nearer the actual event.

Anyway, driving home for the start of a week or so of trying to car out, my father found it not fully satisfying. The next evening, I found the Buick ... not ... anywhere. My father didn't say anything about it. I had to assume it wasn't detonated but then what became of it?

Trivia: Chicago exported eighty bushels of wheat in 1839. In 1849 it exported two million. Source: An Empire Of Wealth: The Epic History Of American Economic Power, John Steele Gordon.

Currently Reading: In Deep, Damon Knight.