Junk in your Trunk

“After trying to get it over my ass, do you know what she said? She said I had too much junk in my trunk!” he exclaimed. “As if I didn’t already known that but to be told by a teenager a quarter my age… well, that was just the funniest thing.”

“So what did you do next?”

“I lifted my ass up so she could get the splint under me.”

“A splint?”

“Yeah, it was my turn to be the victim and I had to lay there and pretend I had a broken leg. At least she didn’t have to do CPR on me, or me on her. Now that would have turned the junk in my trunk into a dump in my trunk.”

When I originally had asked my father-in-law how his First Aid course had gone, in the back of my mind I somewhat expected to be told a story about his ass – particularly the junk part of his ass. What I really didn’t expect was my four year old, Little LP, to pickup up on the conversation and start to giggle so quickly.

“Grandpa has junk in his trunk! Tee-hee-hee!” he snickered to his younger sister. After a few minutes he had gotten bolder and was yelling across the house “GRANDPA HAS JUNK IN HIS TRUNK!” as he ran from room to room. All I could think was Thank goodness the conversation didn’t have anything to do about hemorrhoids.

But, with a four year old now aware of the existence of the phrase “junk in your trunk”, you all know that’s not the end of this story.

The very next day I headed outside with Little LP to fix a flat tire on my mothers car. After explaining to him what we needed to do, he was very excited to see the car jacked up, so he went running out behind me yelling “I’ll get my boots and be right out to help you do the jack!”

It wasn’t until I popped the trunk that I realized this job was going to be tougher than I thought. Being the requisite “Grandma mobile” the trunk was packed full of, well, junk.

To even begin to give you a sampling of what I unearthed I will have to break things down by categories. There was the sports equipment – old tennis racquets, inflated beach balls, and warped plastic frisbees; there was the remnants of “Grandma Gone Wild” with the Grandkids – empty candy wrappers (the kind my kids happen to like), rocks from the beach and empty slurpee cups; there was safety equipment – road side medical bag and a set of jumper cables – but in the emergency kit it looked like the candy bars had been removed - probably by my kids; there was the extra rain/sleet/sun/snow clothes for the “just in case we’re at the park with the kids and the weather changes”. On top of that was packed a stroller and a full size blanket. It was like the go-go-gadget trunk for MacGyver - whatever the emergency or child disaster, this car was set.

After about 10 minutes of unpacking I had almost reached the spare tire, but apparently I was taking too long for my sidekick. “Daadddd,” he whined, “when are we going to take the tire off? You’re spending too much time in the trunk.”

“Well,” I explained, “Because I need to get all this junk out before I can get the extra tire out.”

A slow smile spread across his face as he said “Hey Dad. Grandma has JUNK IN HER TRUNK!”

All I can say is Grandma didn’t sound too happy when he told her that later in the day.