Yeah, It's Cheap But It Runs

You ever have one of those weeks where you see one thing, and then it seems like you see that thing everywhere else? One week when I was in high school I saw, read, or had read to me something about sunspots once a day. By the end of the week I knew more about sunspots than any sane man would. Or, more recently, I saw, read, or had read to me something about the Gamble House six times in two weeks. By the end of two weeks I knew more about... you get the idea.
   This week I've seen three situations, vignettes, if you will, with an unusual common element: a crap-filled beater. And it wasn't even the same car. Everybody's seen this kind of rolling tragedy, an ancient Hyundai or Ford Fiesta or Dodge Omni, full to bursting with boxes, or shoes, or rolled up sleeping bags, or firewood, or magazines, or picnic baskets, or all these things and more crap besides. It's usually filthy inside and out, paint faded from the sun, rust creeping up the fenders, some part of it held on with rope or bungee cord, and a huge crack across the windshield. And there's always a pine tree air freshener hanging from the rear-view. You feel sorry for the driver and yet outraged at the same time.
   Scene 1: the crap-filled beater is several shades of red, the replaced bits not quite matching the original. The driver is a tall, thin, balding, shirtless beanpole of a guy wearing flip-flops, his arms held helplessly out to his sides as if he were imitating Jesus on the cross as he tries to explain something to the motorcycle cop standing beside him. The cop did not seem sympathetic.
   Scene 2: the crap-filled beater is faded lemon yellow, and a rather large woman in an unfortunate choice of clingy knit fabric pants has the hatchback open, standing with her hands on her ample hips, shaking her head as she confronts the avalanche of crap spilling onto the street.
   Scene 3: the crap-filled beater is sickly green, and stalled in one lane of a two-lane freeway on-ramp, pulled over as far as possible but still blocking traffic. The driver is a portly Ren-Faire kind of a guy, complete with scraggly beard and hair back in a pony tail, and his old lady is a painfully thin goth sort of woman with a big tattoo on her spindly left arm. They're both sitting cross-legged on the hood of the beater, waiting for the tow truck (I'm assuming, they could just have been settling in).
   Maybe it's just because I'm out during the day, but I don't recall quite this many rolling garbage cans before.