Getting to Ashland

We had to get to Ashland, about a 20-minute drive from my hometown of Medford. There were just too many cars, though!

I had driven a battered yellow Toyota pickup about five minutes down the old highway, when I saw another car I recognized as my family's. It was a magenta Nova, abandoned in a parking lot by the side of the road. I parked the Toyota next to it, leaving the keys in the ignition. The Nova was in the same state, so I got in it and took off. Another five minutes, another car. All the cars were cars we don't actually own, but I recognized them at the time.

I finally got to a muddy field just outside of Ashland. There were my mother and father, as well as two more of our cars. We waited a little while and my sister arrived, driving the last car I had abandoned.

We all got in the car my father had driven and went back to Medford. There were still more cars outside the house, and we all got in one and set off again, to take the same car-hopping trip.

I parked next to a sky blue VW Rabbit of ours, but it was a metered space. I dug in my pocket, but all I had were Canadian coins. On a hunch, I got out of the car I was in and looked under the hood. There was a dish full of coins for the parking meter, sitting on top of the engine.

Then I got a better idea. I grabbed the parking meter and started to unscrew it. It turned very easily in the ground, but it wasn't coming unscrewed. Then I realized it was like a childproof cap, and I pulled up on it while I turned it. Pretty soon, the parking meter came out of the ground. I set it down across the back seat of the car I'd just parked, got in the Rabbit and drove away.