Because I firmly believe, based upon personal experience, that the two are mutually exclusive, I have opted for proper dental hygiene over being a NASCAR fan. Yes, that’s right—clean teeth, healthy teeth, natural teeth and plenty of them have absolutely won out over watching cars move quickly in a pack around a large circle. And while I certainly recognize that others have not made the same choice, that they, in fact, prefer to spend their Sundays watching cars move quickly in a pack around a large circle, and that the sheer number of such folks is increasing at an alarming rate, I need to make this clear—we’re just different people…you do your thing, I’ll do mine…there’s no judgment implied…and I do really mean that wholeheartedly. Or at least mostly.

You see, I do have some issues with car racing, with one of them being that I strongly suspect that there was a perhaps unfounded rumor that was likely spread through our neighborhood that a NASCAR scout was in our midst. I’m not sure where he was supposed to live, although I suspect he’s that guy who lives down there at the bottom of the hill, the one with the “DIP” sign on the side of his yard. This rumor is the only explanation I can come up with as to why people punched the gas pedal as they were going down the street, hoping, I suppose, that the little, mysterious, unknown NASCAR scout was peering through the mini-blinds just as they flew by—and I do mean “flew” because, while gaining so much speed on the down slope, there were many a NASCAR prospect who just sped right by that “DIP” sign without recognizing that, in spite of their assumed single-digit IQ, the sign was not intended to be a personal insult but was, instead, a warning. I remember specifically one morning when I was out walking my dog when a chick came screaming down the hill, hoping, I assume, that the notes in the NASCAR scout’s notebook would read something like “chick in white Honda mini-van KNOWS where the gas pedal is, avoided that squirrel like a true champ, and was able to apply her mascara evenly until she got some big air at the bottom of that hill—Mary Kay as a sponsor?”

I mean, these folks were really getting on my nerves until I began to embrace the fact that the faster they drove down the hill, the more deafening the noise would be when their front bumper, then their rear bumper, violently met the pavement again. Now that’s some fun. So, I reckon, as long as I wasn’t out walking my dog at the time, I had learned to appreciate whoever it was who started that rumor about the NASCAR scout.

But all good things come to an end, I suppose.

You see, there’s this stereotype that kids who have their tricycles run over when they’re young eventually grow into old, bitter men who ruin the fun for others and likely end up in some pencil-pushing position where they wield their rather limited authority in draconian ways, usually from behind their desks down at City Hall. And such stereotypes exist mainly because, quite simply, they’re friggin’ spot on.

And one of these little dictator-tots leapt into action recently while I was out of town so thus I was quite shocked when I came through the neighborhood and discovered that a “speed table” had been installed on our road. Hmm. So they’ve taken away our fun of folks bottoming out at the bottom of the hill, but wow, what they offered instead was a rather well disguised bump in the road that could effectively rip the bottom out of a car. Although they would be of a different variety, there was still promise of many good times to be had. Cool.

However, the city came in the very next day and installed striping and signs along the sides of the road, thereby giving folks far too adequate of a warning of such driving hazards. Seriously, where’s the fun in that? I’m beginning to think that these folks have absolutely no sense of humor.

I mean, by the time the striping and the signs came to be, we’d all grown quite giddy at the prospect of setting out lawn chairs in which to park our asses for great lengths of time, watching transmissions and mufflers pile up in the street. Now that’s some family fun. And when the neighbor across the street called dibs on setting up a beer stand, we were all momentarily displeased that she’d thought of it first, but just the same, we knew that the thought of throwing some alcohol into the mix is nevertheless an excellent way of elevating the level of neighborhood fun of watching young rednecks testing the limits of all four cylinders of their mothers’ used Hyundai, only to leave the transmissions somewhere along the roadside.

But alas, Mr. Big Cheese down at City Hall decided that saving the brakes and shocks of dumbasses is more important than creating a little camaraderie amongst neighbors. So now we’ll have to find our fun in other ways where nobody is likely to get hurt…like watching football or something. (Oh yeah, and maybe by the time you read this, three puffs of white smoke will have come from the tops of Denny Chimes signaling that a new leader has been anointed. Maybe. And I have one question—I heard a rumor today—is it true that Mike Shula was going to take the head coaching job at The University of Miami only if they changed the name from the Miami Hurricanes to the Miami Tropical Depressions? Can someone confirm that?)