He calls me every Tuesday night as he’s walking back from his on-campus job. He finishes at 10, heads over to get a late night snack from one of the places near his dorm and phones to fill me in on his classes and what drunk co-eds he’s escorted around (he works for the campus security department and makes sure that no one walks alone at night). Tonight was no different.

I got a 99% on my last Music Appreciation paper.

I got a B on my Sociology paper.

I had to escort a blind girl today and carry her Braille typewriter between Building A and Building B – it weighed a ton!

Inevitably, the conversation turns as he hears me yawn. (Figuring he’ll catch me in a moment of weakness.)

I need you to fix my Mudhens jacket. The elastic at the bottom is broken.

Can you approve my housing application for next year? I need to put down a $200 deposit and they won’t take it out of my student account.

Tonight, though, it was the question that I’ve been dreading.

So, about this summer? I’m going to take math and philosophy, but since I’m going to be living at GrammandGrampa’s house, I’ll need a car.

He knows, I’m sure, by the silence that I’m digesting this info. Not that we haven’t talked about it, but I’m very sure that MY view of the kind of car he “needs” is different than his view.

Don’t you think the Magnum we had was safe and reliable?

It was, I agree. It was also a gas guzzler. And far bigger, faster, and more expensive than I had envisioned getting for him to make his way the 8 miles back and forth from MomandDad’s to campus. I had my sights set on something like a Honda. Used. And slow. Sigh.

—- I have a feeling this won’t be the last Tuesday evening I fall asleep dreaming of cars. —-