It leaves you Traffic Cones.
Living as close to The Bars in Wilton Manors as I do, I see a lot of strange things. I have seen people coming home from the bars on foot, wandering around aimlessly, and even had some clown fall asleep in my garden.
That is a story for another time.
This time, I am thinking a similar fate happened to this cone. From what I can tell from the road rash on the base of the thing and how it was left on the driveway, I have a story to tell.
Some random person came to my town, and visited the Arts and Entertainment District on Wilton Drive. They probably had a rather nice time there, dinner, drinks, maybe some dancing.
Once they were through, they decided to take a drive and come home.
I have to assume there was some impairment included because I now have a new traffic cone.
Their car had hit the cone, dragged it along under the car. Either when they pulled in to my driveway here to inspect the noise, because there is always noise when you run over a traffic cone, or when they threw the car into reverse it left the thing there, the cone remained.
I am in the back of the house here, away from the parking areas, and away from the street. I sleep with earplugs. I did not hear a thing.
When I got up, put on enough clothes to take Mr Dog out to water the hedges, and walked past the gate, I spotted the thing. When I walked over to it, I laughed at it because it reminded me of a younger me and a trip through Cherry Hill and Haddonfield, NJ.
You know, where they set the Halloween movies? Michael Myers? Haddonfield was a town east of Cherry Hill, where I grew up. The movies were shot in Illinois, and the name came from the writer knowing South Jersey.
Living in Cherry Hill, you knew Halloween was in Haddonfield (even if it wasn't shot there) and was southwest of you, and Voorhees was Friday the 13th and was east of you. Ok Jason?
I have been driving Jeep Wranglers since 1997 continuously. They fit me, and they let me go where I want to go comfortably. My head does not hit the ceiling and that is important.
Well before then, I had a Jeep CJ7. Much rougher ride, and I eventually got rid of it because it hurt my back riding long distances.
One night I was doing a similar thing. Coming home from the city, I had a ride on the PATCO Hi Speed Line that took you from Center City Philadelphia to the Suburban South Jersey of my youth. I got off in Haddonfield, and mounted my CJ to ride home.
I think I may have wanted to wait another hour before I did get into that old Jeep because somewhere in Haddonfield, I clipped a different cone. It hooked itself on the steering linkage on the front end and I kept going. By the time I left Haddonfield, and came up Brace Road towards my childhood house, I heard that scraping.
I shrugged and pulled into the driveway there. Not waking Mom, or my sister, I looked under the Jeep and there it was.
"How on earth?" I said as I pulled the cone out. I left it in the front of the driveway and came in to sleep the rest of the night away.
So there you have it. The Universe wanted to remind me of that trip and give me a gift of bright safety orange plastic.
I had to tell the neighbor, Diane, about this story, and she was laughing as I was. She's welcome to this new cone, I have two of my own to protect the property from ne'er do wells and partiers when she moves out to her new home.
Welcome to the neighborhood. Strangeness happens and you find things.
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