ode to wo

Originally uploaded by kristalynn.

rising gas prices are a hot topic these days. small car/no car drivers laugh at big car drivers when we hear that it cost $110 to fill up their tank; and big car drivers barrel through red lights like they and their thule outdoor sports utility transportation racks have something to prove.

when i was in high school, my first big crush was on rich banks. he spelled his name rich bank$. he was so hot. and then i fell for warren beattie (real name). he was hot too. the best thing about warren was his looks. the second best thing about warren was his lada.

i remember sitting around warren's house one lazy summer afternoon, deciding what to do with ourselves. we threw some towels into the back seat and head off to the beach. we never found the beach and got lost. the radiator in the lada was broken and we had to drive with the heat blasting. warren would stick his foot out the window and scream, "MY FEET ARE ON FIRE!!"

warren would get despondent, usually when drinking. he would wander off in a very dramatic fashion. "what's wrong with wo?" someone would ask. "kevin must be over." his closer friends would postulate.

warren and his million siblings were raised by a single mom, myrna. and myrna was dating a truck driver named kevin. kevin would visit when he was in town and warren was driven mad by the sight of that 18-wheeler parked along the front of his house.

one night warren stole ronald mcdonald. he shoved him in the back seat of the lada. he was too big to fit and his upper torso and waving arm stuck out of the window. the headline in the community newspaper read: "ronald mcstolen!"

i moved to rome and myrna shipped warren to the prairies to live with his grandparents. we wrote each other for a bit, but it petered out. the next year i was forced to move back to ottawa, where i decided to work in a department store to make enough money to move back to rome. there i spotted myrna. she was a manager. "warren's back." she said. "he's coming to pick me up after work tonight. you should say 'hi'".

my mom grew up in winnipeg and coincidentally one of her friend's sons or something like that got some kind of pleasure of relaying the message that warren had been dating someone named "diane".

warren pulled up. my co-worker looked concerned and grabbed my hand. "are you going to be ok?"

i took a deep breath. "yeah."

i grabbed the door handle to the not-lada and slid into the passenger's seat. "hey." i was glad it was a good hair day.

he turned down his beastie boys cassette, surprised not to hear his mom's voice. "hey... what're you...?"

"where's the lada?"

"no more."

"how's diane?"

"uh..."

it's a good thing warren didn't have the same kind of ammo that i did, or he could have fought back with names like "maurizio" and "stefano".

he was a good kid. the last i heard he was into cabinet making.