A Hillbilly Mom And Pony Show

Here's what you're going to miss when The Pony goes off to college. You may be sighing a sigh of relief, but I, myself, am not.

We were waiting to enter the building before an appointment Monday afternoon, and I was sitting behind the wheel of T-Hoe writing out a check. The Pony, more that likely with his nose out of joint about riding UP FRONT with me in the shotgun seat rather than behind me like chauffeured royalty, picked up my plastic change cup and started fiddling with it.

"OOPS!"

"Pick that up! I have enough trouble finding correct change for my 44 oz Diet Coke every day!"

"Um. I can't pick it up. It's in that crack where the seat hooks in."

"Great! What was it, a quarter?"

"No. Just a nickel."

"Well, when we trade this car, somebody's going to get a free nickel!"

"At least they won't get a pink disposable lighter!"

"Yeah. I STILL want to know why Dad found that in your car."

"I guess it fell out of somebody's pocket when they took a test drive. It's not MINE!"

"Are you SURE there isn't something you want to tell us?"

"No."

"Have you been smoking crack all these times I thought you should have been home earlier?"

"I don't even know how to light one of those things."

"That's what's so sad! How are you going to--"

"The LIGHTER!"

"Well, I'd HOPE!"

"Oh...the crack, too."

"I HOPE you don't know how to light a crack pipe!"

"Your eyes are really tiny. The pupil. It's like a pinpoint."

"The sun is reflecting off that white car there, giving me a glare. Of course my pupils contracted."

"The rest of your eye is really cool. It has a kind of green part with flecks of red--"

"RED?"

"Or brown. Flecks. And then there's a kind of ring that is grayish--"

"You pretty much have my eyes--"

"But not in a jar beside my bed!"

I don't know what's going to become of that boy. He's a master of misdirection. But pretty much incapable of perfecting vices that other kids have been honing for years.