Toyota Ain't Kosha' - Part 1

The other day a guy came to my door at about 7:30 in the evening. I had just finished prayers with Justice, and tucked her into bed, whereupon she extolled my virtues as her surrogate father and promised that any fame and fortune that ever came her way, she would see to it that I took the largest part.

Unlike my parents, I now know that my future as a retiree and convalescent octogenarian is now secure.

But I digress.

The gentleman at my door was a complete stranger. This is hardly news, since I maintain a strict isolationist policy when it comes to my neighbors. This way, they will never bother to ask me to borrow a cup of milk, sugar or an egg. That last time I let a neighbor borrow something, I never saw my pet Cairn Terrier again.

So the fact that someone had actually penetrated the laser security system, traversed the mine field and survived the anti-aircraft and anti-tank artillery trained along all entrances to my abode was indeed impressive.

“Good evening sir,” the chipper young man said as he brushed dirt and debris from his singed uniform. I could still make out his name scrawled on the uniform’s nametag as ‘Joe”. “We were just setting up some of your neighbors with DirectTV (all rights reserved, not available in all areas, call for an authorized dealer to harass you for the next two years) Satellite television and they were telling us how high their cable rates are around here. I was wondering if you would be interested in lower your own price for high quality television?”

I was impressed.

Not only had this young man, Joe, been assisting my neighbors with his Can-Do attitude, golden locks of lightly curled hair, jaw line that you could crack walnuts on and humble sense of civic duty, but here he had heard the moaning of my fellow citizens about the cut-throat cable industry and their onerous usage charges, and had taken it upon himself to afford me the opportunity to partake of his benevolence and that of his company with clearly no benefit to himself or any stockholders.

I felt good. I felt joyous.

“I’m sorry. We don’t have cable.”

“You don’t have cable?” Joe asked, clearly shocked and appalled. “How do you watch television then?”

“We don’t watch television,” I replied. I felt a little guilty. Here Joe was trying to save me some of my hard-earned money, and I had stolen his thunder. It was like he had offered me a hand into the last emergency boat aboard the Titanic, and I had taken his hand, then plunged a large and atypically brutal looking knife into his back while cackling evil at his naiveté.

“You don’t own a TV set?” Joe asked. He had gone ghostly pale, and looked faint.

Here, I rallied to save poor Joe from the shock and awe I had just laid on him, “No. We own two. We just don’t have cable.”

“An antenna then?” Joe asked, his eyes pleading to make it so.

I tried to lie. Honest I did. But those pleading cocker spaniel-eyes had torn away every last shred of duplicity and obfuscation.

“No, no antenna,” I said, the truth falling from my lips as if someone else was saying the words.

“Oh,” Joe replied. “Well then . . .”

An uneasy silence fell upon both of us. Joe looked at his clipboard, as if to be certain that this was still the United States of America, and I looked at Joe, wondering if was about to run screaming straight back into the slings and arrows of the mine field, and by so doing, end it all.

Then, a light, as if heaven itself has opened a single ray of hope down on Joe’s immaculately conceived head.

“You just watch movies, right?”

I smiled both inwardly and outwardly, feeling my deceptive nature returning like a comfortable pair of combat boots.

“Yes, that’s right. Just movies.”

Joe smiled, as if all was right again with the world, and his place in that world was completely secure. He nodded to me, knowingly, and I nodded back, not willing to destroy the last bastion of Joe’s rose-tinted world. I flipped the switch that disabled most of the surveillance and anti-personnel equipment, and bid Joe a good night. He skipped off the porch, and since no one has come to claim the body, I assume he made it safely out.

Now, what does this have to do with the car manufacturer Toyota or how it isn’t kosher? Well, for that, you’ll have to come back tomorrow . . . or the next day. Perhaps next week when I, like Paul Harvey, can tell you . . . The Rest of the Story.

Good day.