| There's this guy who lives across the street | | | | when he is coming long before he turns off |
| from us who we have renamed Wet Lips. When we | | | | the main road and onto our street. Then he |
| are in a really lighthearted mood, we refer | | | | cuts the wheels suddenly to the left in |
| to him as Puffy Wet Lips. This gomer is in | | | | directly front of our window and doesn't so |
| his late 60's to early 70' and has a body | | | | much drive into the parking space as flies |
| like Mr. McGoo and lips like Angelina | | | | into it as though shot out of a rocket |
| Jolie's. I mean they are two huge puffy red | | | | launcher. Then, he backs up. Then he goes |
| and unnatural things that look like a pair of | | | | forward. Then he backs up. Then he goes |
| slugs. I keep waiting for them to take off in | | | | forward. Then he backs up. Then he goes |
| a race around his little head at any moment. | | | | forward. He does this exactly five times. |
| Actually, he looks more like that toady | | | | And, each time he backs up, he comes within |
| little man with the horned-rimmed glasses and | | | | inches of our bedroom window and fills our |
| freaky, scratchy voice who used to be on | | | | house with carbon monoxide. Once he is |
| LateNight with David Letterman and whose name | | | | Obsessively- Compulsively satisfied that the |
| I can never remember. Anyway, Wet Lips drives | | | | car is snugly into his slot, then he hammers |
| this ancient VW Bug on which he has to | | | | down on the accelerator while foraging about |
| rebuild the engine each Saturday. I think it | | | | for one of those red-barred things that lock |
| had to be one of the very first Volkswagens | | | | the steering wheel up so no one will steal |
| Bugs every built. Somehow, he got it into | | | | his machine of asphyxiating death. (As if |
| Mexico after taking it from Hitler right | | | | someone would want his bomb that belches |
| after the war or something like that. Wet | | | | foul-smelling blue smoke!) All the while, |
| Lips keeps running this "car" when he should | | | | Larry Lead-Foot is hammered down on the gas |
| show some humanitarian kindness and have it | | | | pedal and we, well, we start walking all |
| put down. Wet Lips drives this car endlessly, | | | | wobbly, start falling down a lot, and begin |
| relentlessly, and stupidly. We live on the | | | | seeing things that are not there. I have got |
| end of a dead-end street and "Puffy," as we | | | | to suppress the urge to go outside, drag him |
| are wont to call him, comes in and out of his | | | | from his car, and hold his mouth over the |
| little cochera (carport) dozens upon dozens | | | | exhaust pipe and screech like a madman, |
| of times a day. The man is a maniac. No one | | | | "How's that tasting for you, Puffy?" I truly |
| has to use a car that often anywhere or for | | | | do not get what possessed Mexicans in this |
| anything that many times a day. But, he | | | | town to get cars in such |
| evidently has many places to go and many | | | | environmental-destroying abundance. Those who |
| people to see each day. When he makes his | | | | have cars, and sometimes more than one, are |
| frequent trips, we always know it because he | | | | beginning to have the same obesity problems |
| parks the Blue Beetle right in front of our | | | | that Americans, Canadians and now many |
| bedroom window. Here is how the man parks his | | | | Europeans are suffering. They will get into a |
| car. His little carport is exactly three | | | | car to drive two hundred yards all in the |
| meters in front of our bedroom window. We | | | | name of "Car Ownership Convenience" when they |
| know this distance for a fact because one | | | | could walk! So badly is car ownership coveted |
| time, last summer, someone tried to blow up a | | | | that the payoff for having a car far |
| taxi across from our window by setting it on | | | | outweighs affording their kids clean air and |
| fire and that's what motivated us to take | | | | a healthier body by walking rather than |
| scientific measurements. The flaming taxi was | | | | motoring. That is a mystery to me! |
| right next to Wet Lips' car. Nothing happened | | | | |
| to the VW (unfortunately) but the cab was | | | | Doug Bower is the author of "A Walk Through |
| toast. So, here comes Wet Lips tearing up the | | | | Mexico's Crown Jewel: A Guanajuato |
| street at speeds no one should be able to | | | | Travelogue. |
| drive a VW, but he does anyway. My wife knows | | | | |