Ardon Tires

If it weren't for junk mail, I'd get almost no real mail at all. Still I hate it. Mr. 'O' our Korean letter carrier makes no effort at all to put the flyers and supermarket sale sheets in the mail box neatly. Tenant's mail, Mark's magazines, and offers to have my body cremated are routinely stuffed between the pages of the sale sheets. And then there are the pizza and Chinese restaurant menus. Those are always left on the door knob by homeless people hired for a couple of dollars and a bottle of vodka. I have often considered gathering up all the menus, on all the door knobs up and down the block, then driving to the offending establishment, and throwing them back at them. So far I haven't done that.

Early yesterday afternoon I went out to our car to get some rolls of toilet paper that Mark had left in it. Toilet paper is too heavy for Mark to carry into the house so he always leaves it for me. As I walked out the front gate I noticed that there was an advertising flyer on the windshield. It had gotten wet, and Mark had tried to remove it by turning on the windshield wipers. That didn't work. Instead it stuck to the window and in the heat of the sun it became permanently affixed to the glass. I tried peeling it off, scraping it off, and scrubbing it with steel wool. It would not budge. I wasn't going to take this shit. So I noted what establishment it was advertising, got the keys to the car, and drove up to Ardon Tires.
    "Si, can I help you sir?"
    "Yes, you can remove that advertising card from my windshield."
    "Is that all? You only want me to take that off?"
The man had a quizzical look on his face, probably wondering if this gringo had drank too much tequila?
    "Yes, you put it on there. You take it off."
The man just stood there and stared at me for a moment.
    "I put it on there?"
    "Look at it. It says Ardon Tires. It has your address, your phone number. Take it off."
He walked away, and returned with a razor blade. Quietly he scraped it off of my windshield. When he was done, he stepped back a little bit and pointed to my front tires.
    "That is very dangerous. You see the steel belt coming through the tread sir?"
    "Yes, I guess I do."
    "You should replace those tires very soon. I wouldn't go far on those."
I looked the tires over. They were in horrible shape. So I asked him how much to replace them, while at the same time quietly cursing to myself. "Goddamnit, he got me."