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All That's Fit to Print I waste a lot of time watching the news crawl across the bottom of the television screen. Usually, I catch the last three words of an item that sounds intriguing. Then I have to sit and watch the crawl until it cycles back around. Last night, "didn't have room in the car" caught my attention. That sounded like some fool might have lashed a dog crate to the top of an SUV or maybe let a child ride on top of a minivan.You never know. People can be pretty stupid. Fifteen minutes later, I finally caught the whole story. A man was in trouble for putting two of his four children in the trunk. His excuse was there wasn't enough room in the car for all four children. I'll bet there is more to this story than two sentences on a news crawler can tell. I tried to imagine why anyone in this day and age would let children ride in the trunk of the car. I imagined the following scene. "Get in the car, children." "But I don't want to sit in the back seat." "You can't sit in the front seat. You are too short according to federal regulations and your mother has to sit somewhere." "But the baby seat is taking up all the room." "Well, that's too bad. The baby seat and the baby stay." The father starts the car and prepares to back out of the driveway. "Susie is on my side of the car." "No, I'm not. He doesn't have a side. He has a fourth." "No, I don't. I have like a sixth because that baby seat takes up so much room." "His math skills aren't bad, are they, dear?" father says to mother. The "he" in question kicks the back of his father's seat as the car pulls out of the driveway. "Don't make me stop this car," the father says for the first time. One half mile later, a disturbance erupts in the back seat. Big brother has encroached on younger sister's space. Her squeals wake up the baby who throws up. "Gross. It stinks back here," whines big brother. "I'd rather ride in the trunk." "Fine," says the father and pulls over and pops the trunk. Little brother hops out of the car jumping up and down, "Can I ride back there, too. Can I, huh, can I?" He has been sitting quietly in the floor of the car in front of the baby seat coloring on the door of the car. The trip resumes, quieter except for an occasional bump in the rear of the car. Now, I'm certainly not advocating letting children ride in the trunk of a car. I get upset if I see someone haul their pets around in the trunk. But, in all honesty, I have to hope there was more to the story than simply a guy who stuck his kids in the trunk because the car was a little crowded.
Unfortunately, an imagined life is sometimes much less cruel than the real thing.
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