Three-shoed Toyotas are spotted wandering the county

It was springtime when the absence was first discovered. My wife pulled into the drive while I was mowing the lawn, and I flagged her down as she passed.

“How long have you been missing a hubcap?” I asked, pointing to her rear right wheel.

“A hubcap, really?” Kristin gasped. “What could have happened?”

“Well, I have an idea or two, but ‘operator error’ ranks high on the list,” I said. “Have you chunked through a pothole or bombed over a set of railroad tracks lately?”

“Me? Don’t be ridiculous,” she bristled. “I’m pretty sure that if I hit something hard enough to lose a hubcap, I would have noticed right away,”

“Right. Well, if I were you, I’d keep an eye peeled on the roadside in the places you normally travel, especially in the vicinity of the previously mentioned obstacles. Hubcaps often ‘mystically excuse themselves’ from their cars at such places.”

The very next day, Kristin called me at work to let me know that she’d already spotted the missing accessory as it lay at the edge of a downtown street just a few blocks from our house.

“I pulled over and dashed out into the street to grab it,” she reported proudly. “Ha! That was easy!”

Upon arriving home, I retrieved the errant bling ring from the back of Kristin’s car and quickly realized that although a brand match for her Toyota, this particular hubcap had not come from her car. Furthermore, it was actually a few sizes too small. (Had someone tried to jump the railroad tracks in a Prius?)

Now, not only were we a hoop short on our own car, but we were also assured that some other Toyota was rolling along in similar shame by holding their hubcap hostage.

“You’d better take it back to where you found it.” Predictably, Kristin bristled at the notion.

“So, I’m going to pull my three-hubcapped car over to the curb, pull a fourth hubcap out of my trunk, lay it on the curb and drive away from it?”

“Sounds like a plan!” I laughed. “At least you’ll have an alibi if a cop busts you for littering. Furthermore, you may even be heralded as a hero. I can see a little kid shouting, ‘Look, mommy, that poor woman who doesn’t even have enough hubcaps of her own is donating one to the even less fortunate!’”

“Funny,” she deadpanned, “but unfortunately, I won’t be traveling that way for the foreseeable future, so if you want the hubcap returned in a timely fashion, you’d better saddle up and ride.”

If there’s one thing stranger than seeing a woman carefully lay what appears to be one of her own four hubcaps at the side of the road, it might be watching a man on a bicycle do the same. Still, karma compelled me forward. Somewhere out there a tiny Toyota was missing a shoe, and I’d be danged if I was going to deny it the right to be whole again!

Kristin and John Lorson would love to hear from you. Write: Drawing Laughter, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627 or email John atjlorson@alonovus.com.