The Prairie Spy

Alan “Lindy” Linda

It’s time to write my New Year’s resolutions. 

First: I’m not going to raise any more kids. Sure you’re not, you say, because you’re too old anyway. To which I say: That’s not strictly true, because you can look around and see movie star guys older than I am who are starting babies. Why not me, then. (Nope. Not gonna happen.)

It is therefore a legitimate resolution, and I list it in good faith. Fat chance I’ll blow this one.

I’m not going to read my horoscope in the newspaper anymore; nor am I going to pay any attention to their Zodiak signs, especially the ones that I don’t really like anyway. According to astrologists, I should have been rich or famous by now.

The Chinese Zodiak, now, that’s going to take some effort to give up. They’re amazingly accurate when they predict some of their stuff, and as someone who was born under the sign of the Monkey who has lots of friends (I used to, anyway.), who looks good (I do, I do.), and uses humor constructively (Did I tell you the one about the nun and the rabbi?), they’re pretty hard to resist. They also say I’m manipulative, which I find hard to believe. (Say, have I got a deal for you!)

Anyway, that stuff is all behind me now. Trust me.

I’m pretty sure that, next time I buy a different car, I’m not going to take it right out on the straightest piece of blacktop road that I can find and open it up to see how fast it will go. As new resolutions go, this will be a tough thrill to break. Ever since I was 16, I’ve enjoyed seeing how fast different cars will go. They fool you. You never know. Some cars are pathetic, and show by their speedometers that they’ll go a hundred miles an hour, but really poop out somewhere around 90. Some digital speedometers go crazy once you get them way over their little computer-programmed limit.

Someone I know who works with Harley-Davidson motorcycles, was telling me the other day how forlorn he felt when he was passed on the highway by a Suburu.

Well, I asked, how fast were you going?

“About 90 mph,” he replied, somewhat forlornly, as I said before. Oh, the shame.

And the Suburu passed you? How was that possible, I asked, and wondered why he couldn’t have gone faster.

“Because,” he said, “Harleys are governored to not go any faster.”

Really? I told him that I had had a Suburu once, but decided it was out of character for me, me being someone who has given up seeing how fast these new cars can go, because they no longer let me go fast. So I got rid of it.

He kind of shrugged his shoulders, as if to say what can you do, really.

My new resolution for this year is to not judge a book by its cover.

A Harley passed by a Suburu. Huh.