I was driving South on I-5, in the heart of Los Angeles, orange cones blocking two lanes on my right. I had Willie Nelson blasting on the stereo in my Kia piece-of-shita rental car.
The cars in front of me started to jerk to the left and right. Then there it was – a big black garbage bag, in front of my car. I gripped the wheel and hit it head on, dead center. A large “POP!” followed by some grumbling under the car and a fireworks display of trash being strewn all over the highway in my rear view mirror. “Holy Shit!” (I’m pretty sure I said that out loud.) I looked up at the review mirror again and started to laugh. Trash everywhere, all over the highway. Crazy. It actually looked beautiful, in a way.
I pulled the car over at the next exit sign, shooting through the cones and coming to a stop at the place that is not the exit, but not the highway; that little triangle of gravel and lost auto parts. Checking all my mirrors and scanning the outside for the criminals reported to be everywhere in LA, I got out check the car for, well, whatever you check a car for after hitting a full bag of trash at seventy miles an hour.
Peering underneath the car, I saw there was a plastic bag stuck to the catalytic converter.
“Whad Up?!” I whacked my head on the bumper. There was Jesus, wearing an Oakland Raiders baseball hat, turned sideways, brim flat, with the size sticker still on it. (The Lord wears a size 7 & 3/8, in case you were wondering, or want to buy a gift.) I was rubbing my head as Jesus laughed. “Oh man, Ted. You should have seen your face!”
“Well, Jesus, what did you expect? I probably crapped my pants too!” I was angry.
“Lighten up, my brother!” exclaimed the Lord. “And turn around.” He spun me and check the back of my pants. “You’re good. No poop.”
“We best be getting back in your car Ted. This may be the City of Angels, but I don’t think they work nights anymore.”
“Good call Jesus.” We got back in the Kia.
“Let’s get back on the road, and we can talk while you drive.” commanded HE.
The traffic was zooming by at seventy MPH+, and compacted into only three lanes. I was revving the engine. “Tell me when to punch it, Jesus.”
“No.”
“Not yet.”
“No…..”
“Hang on…”
“PUNCH IT THEODORE!”
I stabbed my foot on the accelerator. The Kia’s tires squealed, the car swerved, and jumped into the lane.
“WHACK!”
“Ha! You took out a cone Ted!” and the Lord laughed like a mad man.
I was too busy trying to get the Kia up to traffic speed before I got me and Jesus killed. Well, me anyway. The Kia’s engine was roaring and so was Jesus. I don’t know which I found more annoying.
When the Kia made it to sixty five miles and hour, I finally relaxed. I looked at the king of kings, and he said, “Life is one hell of a ride, huh Ted?”
“Yeah, but I could do without the stray bags of garbage.” I replied.
“Ted, Ted, Ted, when will you learn that it the bags of garbage are what life is made of?”
“Well, Jesus, maybe tonight would be good. We have some miles ahead of us. Enlighten me.”
“There was a man from Samaria, let’s make that Samaria Louis. He was a hoarder, a collector of things. This drove his family crazy. Every few years, they would get the old man out of the house, and clean it. Tossing out dumpsters of trash. Worthless junk, Newspapers. Magazines. Stuff he bought on the home shopping channel. Plastic bread bags. Shoes. Stray socks. Old TV’s and lawn mowers he got at garage sales, and thousands of lottery tickets. Oh, he also had lots of cats. So, they house smelled real good too."
This went on for years. The old man collected, and the family would throw it away. One day, when the family came by to get the old man out of the house for his ninety-third birthday party, they found him dead under a pile of toppled, pet-urine soaked newspapers. His ears were chewed off by his hungry cats. The family had the house emptied one more time. Then had it condemned and burned it to the ground.”
“That’s it?” I asked the Lord. “Was that some kind of goofy parable?
“Goofy? I think it was pretty good, given the limited intelligence of my audience.”
“Ouch. Now that was uncalled for, there Joshua.” My ego was a little bruised, but I deserved it. I don’t remember too many people telling the Lord his parables were goofy. Or none lived to tell the tale.
“Don’t you get it, Mensa man?” prodded the King of Kings.
“Yeah, don’t fill your house up with shit.” sayith I.
“Yep, that’s it! You got it man.” sayith HE.
“I did? I was sort of joking there…”
“What do you mean? That’s the lesson! as Chuck Palahniuk wrote, ‘Everything you love will eventually be thrown away.’ or something like that. So, you should throw it away yourself. Throw it away today, now, while you still have the time.”
“So, what you are saying is that we are too materialistic, Lord?” I asked.
“Well, everyone IS too materialistic, but it is more than that. Throw away your old ideas, hates, hurts, and even loves. ‘Let the dead bury the dead’ as someone once said. Having a house or life filled with trash from the past doesn’t serve you. It traps you and will eventually bury you.”
“Hey Jesus, that’s pretty deep.”
“What do you expect, Teddy boy? I am who I am.” HE stated.
“Isn’t this where you disappear on me?” I queried the Lord.
“Nope. There’s more.”
“Humph, really?” I mumbled.
“Do you know the saying, ‘If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans?”
“Yeah, I have heard that one – always liked it, because it rings true.”
“Then think of your life as a journey down I-5. How you can be cruising along, listening to Willie, and then there is the big bag of garbage out of nowhere you have to deal with.”
“And sometimes you can swerve and miss it, and other times you have to just hit it, plow through and deal with the consequences.” I added.
“Yeah, pretty much, Ted. Pretty much……” Jesus stared out the window.
“Kind of like being a simple man, and then one day people calling you the Son Of Man?” I added.
“And everything that means…” HIS voice trailed…. “Shit.”
“You know, Ted. Everyone has to die. It sucks, but that’s the way it works. Some are tortured and die. I wasn’t special. If I was alive right now, I wouldn’t be. I’d be dead in cell in Guantanamo Bay.”
I felt HIS stare, and I looked over and his eyes were burning into me. “If the people in your country keep this up, cheering over the death of innocents, looking the other way, pretending that somehow your leaders are exempt from being evil because they are ‘Americans’, you will get the government you deserve. You are well on your way.”
I heard a loud ka-twack, and a bump. I looked in my review mirror, and saw a road cone spinning in the center of the highway.
“Ha! Can you believe that Jesus? It must have been stuck in the wheel well, or some…..” as turned and he wasn’t there.
“Damn!” I said out loud. “I wasn’t done talking.”
I turned the music back up, and HIS voice broke in. “Sorry for the abrupt exit, Ted. I’ll be back soon, we still have to finish discussing your dream. Oh, and tell Rebecckkah to watch those MySpace comments. I was human once, I do have feelings. And my mom!”
“I’ll pass the word along, my friend.” I replied to the Kia’s car stereo.
Then Willie Nelson began singing, “On The Road Again.” I looked out at the winding highway, searching the night for stray bags of trash.
copyright 2008 Ted Sky All rights reserved.
The cars in front of me started to jerk to the left and right. Then there it was – a big black garbage bag, in front of my car. I gripped the wheel and hit it head on, dead center. A large “POP!” followed by some grumbling under the car and a fireworks display of trash being strewn all over the highway in my rear view mirror. “Holy Shit!” (I’m pretty sure I said that out loud.) I looked up at the review mirror again and started to laugh. Trash everywhere, all over the highway. Crazy. It actually looked beautiful, in a way.
I pulled the car over at the next exit sign, shooting through the cones and coming to a stop at the place that is not the exit, but not the highway; that little triangle of gravel and lost auto parts. Checking all my mirrors and scanning the outside for the criminals reported to be everywhere in LA, I got out check the car for, well, whatever you check a car for after hitting a full bag of trash at seventy miles an hour.
Peering underneath the car, I saw there was a plastic bag stuck to the catalytic converter.
“Whad Up?!” I whacked my head on the bumper. There was Jesus, wearing an Oakland Raiders baseball hat, turned sideways, brim flat, with the size sticker still on it. (The Lord wears a size 7 & 3/8, in case you were wondering, or want to buy a gift.) I was rubbing my head as Jesus laughed. “Oh man, Ted. You should have seen your face!”
“Well, Jesus, what did you expect? I probably crapped my pants too!” I was angry.
“Lighten up, my brother!” exclaimed the Lord. “And turn around.” He spun me and check the back of my pants. “You’re good. No poop.”
“We best be getting back in your car Ted. This may be the City of Angels, but I don’t think they work nights anymore.”
“Good call Jesus.” We got back in the Kia.
“Let’s get back on the road, and we can talk while you drive.” commanded HE.
The traffic was zooming by at seventy MPH+, and compacted into only three lanes. I was revving the engine. “Tell me when to punch it, Jesus.”
“No.”
“Not yet.”
“No…..”
“Hang on…”
“PUNCH IT THEODORE!”
I stabbed my foot on the accelerator. The Kia’s tires squealed, the car swerved, and jumped into the lane.
“WHACK!”
“Ha! You took out a cone Ted!” and the Lord laughed like a mad man.
I was too busy trying to get the Kia up to traffic speed before I got me and Jesus killed. Well, me anyway. The Kia’s engine was roaring and so was Jesus. I don’t know which I found more annoying.
When the Kia made it to sixty five miles and hour, I finally relaxed. I looked at the king of kings, and he said, “Life is one hell of a ride, huh Ted?”
“Yeah, but I could do without the stray bags of garbage.” I replied.
“Ted, Ted, Ted, when will you learn that it the bags of garbage are what life is made of?”
“Well, Jesus, maybe tonight would be good. We have some miles ahead of us. Enlighten me.”
“There was a man from Samaria, let’s make that Samaria Louis. He was a hoarder, a collector of things. This drove his family crazy. Every few years, they would get the old man out of the house, and clean it. Tossing out dumpsters of trash. Worthless junk, Newspapers. Magazines. Stuff he bought on the home shopping channel. Plastic bread bags. Shoes. Stray socks. Old TV’s and lawn mowers he got at garage sales, and thousands of lottery tickets. Oh, he also had lots of cats. So, they house smelled real good too."
This went on for years. The old man collected, and the family would throw it away. One day, when the family came by to get the old man out of the house for his ninety-third birthday party, they found him dead under a pile of toppled, pet-urine soaked newspapers. His ears were chewed off by his hungry cats. The family had the house emptied one more time. Then had it condemned and burned it to the ground.”
“That’s it?” I asked the Lord. “Was that some kind of goofy parable?
“Goofy? I think it was pretty good, given the limited intelligence of my audience.”
“Ouch. Now that was uncalled for, there Joshua.” My ego was a little bruised, but I deserved it. I don’t remember too many people telling the Lord his parables were goofy. Or none lived to tell the tale.
“Don’t you get it, Mensa man?” prodded the King of Kings.
“Yeah, don’t fill your house up with shit.” sayith I.
“Yep, that’s it! You got it man.” sayith HE.
“I did? I was sort of joking there…”
“What do you mean? That’s the lesson! as Chuck Palahniuk wrote, ‘Everything you love will eventually be thrown away.’ or something like that. So, you should throw it away yourself. Throw it away today, now, while you still have the time.”
“So, what you are saying is that we are too materialistic, Lord?” I asked.
“Well, everyone IS too materialistic, but it is more than that. Throw away your old ideas, hates, hurts, and even loves. ‘Let the dead bury the dead’ as someone once said. Having a house or life filled with trash from the past doesn’t serve you. It traps you and will eventually bury you.”
“Hey Jesus, that’s pretty deep.”
“What do you expect, Teddy boy? I am who I am.” HE stated.
“Isn’t this where you disappear on me?” I queried the Lord.
“Nope. There’s more.”
“Humph, really?” I mumbled.
“Do you know the saying, ‘If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans?”
“Yeah, I have heard that one – always liked it, because it rings true.”
“Then think of your life as a journey down I-5. How you can be cruising along, listening to Willie, and then there is the big bag of garbage out of nowhere you have to deal with.”
“And sometimes you can swerve and miss it, and other times you have to just hit it, plow through and deal with the consequences.” I added.
“Yeah, pretty much, Ted. Pretty much……” Jesus stared out the window.
“Kind of like being a simple man, and then one day people calling you the Son Of Man?” I added.
“And everything that means…” HIS voice trailed…. “Shit.”
“You know, Ted. Everyone has to die. It sucks, but that’s the way it works. Some are tortured and die. I wasn’t special. If I was alive right now, I wouldn’t be. I’d be dead in cell in Guantanamo Bay.”
I felt HIS stare, and I looked over and his eyes were burning into me. “If the people in your country keep this up, cheering over the death of innocents, looking the other way, pretending that somehow your leaders are exempt from being evil because they are ‘Americans’, you will get the government you deserve. You are well on your way.”
I heard a loud ka-twack, and a bump. I looked in my review mirror, and saw a road cone spinning in the center of the highway.
“Ha! Can you believe that Jesus? It must have been stuck in the wheel well, or some…..” as turned and he wasn’t there.
“Damn!” I said out loud. “I wasn’t done talking.”
I turned the music back up, and HIS voice broke in. “Sorry for the abrupt exit, Ted. I’ll be back soon, we still have to finish discussing your dream. Oh, and tell Rebecckkah to watch those MySpace comments. I was human once, I do have feelings. And my mom!”
“I’ll pass the word along, my friend.” I replied to the Kia’s car stereo.
Then Willie Nelson began singing, “On The Road Again.” I looked out at the winding highway, searching the night for stray bags of trash.
copyright 2008 Ted Sky All rights reserved.
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