Drive-By Bricking

It was a cool autumn morning when the mysterious brick made its nest in the middle of the road. It was 100-years-old, tired, and crumbly. Today, the brick felt even more abused and ready for death because a person--a stranger who had no right to touch it--had hurled its poor crumbly form into the back of a car. The brick lay on the cold dry asphalt with a horrid headache. It just wanted to go sleep in a nice bed of wet cement. Little did it know it was the beginning of a mystery.

Someone threw a brick at my car a few weeks ago.

It's not a big deal unless I make it into one...which is easily done when an imagination is let off its leash. The brick severely dented the back gate of my Jeep Liberty--an already abused portion of my car from the rear-ending incident three months ago. Functionally, the door works fine. Cosmetically, it could use some cover-up. I'm not too worried about the car.

The real questions are who and why.

My rampaging imagination thought wildly of the least conspicuous to the obvious town brickers. Maybe it was the mailman taking revenge because I park too close to the mailbox. Maybe it was the neighbors who have a grudge because we don't mow our lawn as often as they do. Maybe it was a college student in drunken humor who thought it'd be funny to abuse an old brick and a stranger's car. Or maybe it was a vandal trying to break the back window to steal the Jeep, but had very poor aim. Maybe it's someone with a vendetta against another person with a white 2007 Jeep Liberty and they just mistook mine in the darkness to be their nemesis's.

We don't know who. We don't know why. We eventually found out it had been happening all week to innocent vehicle-owners. Everyone comes out of it with a dent, a story, and a 100-year-old souvenir brick. Overall, my car has taken a beating, but it's nothing it can't master. It's a Jeep after all.