Last night I ordered a modestly priced Caesar Salad at Orem’s Diner, but for some reason my appetite faded. So I brown-bagged it, brought it home, put it in the fridge. My plan this morning was to do a wash at the Wilton Laundromat and then hit the library or the River Road Starbucks for the usual arduous filing.

So I grabbed my loaded-down leather computer bag, my bright-red laundry bag, a plastic container of Tide and the clear plastic Ceasar Salad container, and carried it all to the the car. I put the Caesar on the car roof while loading the back and front seats. No hurry, nice and careful. I started the engine, backed the car out and headed south to the laundromat.

It wasn’t until this evening around 7 pm that I realized what had happened with the Ceasar. I’m figuring it held on for two or three minutes as I drove along the winding country roads, but once I hit the gas on Route 7 the wind blew it off and the plastic container with all that Romaine lettuce and those chicken chunks and cherry tomatoes splattered and scattered big-time…it couldn’t have been a pretty sight.

I’m imagining what the person driving behind me must have thought: “God, will ya look at that absent-minded asshole?…he probably doesn’t even know what’s happened…who’s going to pick this mess up?…what if some hungry deer tries to eat some of the lettuce and chicken and some guy driving and texting isn’t paying sufficient attention?”