"Tell me I'm pretty."

She didn't say it, but rather that was what we imagined she was saying to her reflection in the rear view mirror. I was sitting behind her in my friends truck. She was sitting in a late model Toyota Camry, silver in color. From what little I could tell, she appeared to be in her late 40's, maybe. She had short cropped hair. She was staring at herself in the rear view mirror and was furiously trying to fix her hair.

We were sitting in a shopping center parking lot. I won't mention the name of the store, but let's just say it rhymes with "Small-fart". EL had pulled into this row in an attempt to get out of the packed parking lot as fast as possible. Fate allowed him to slip into the row directly behind the silver Toyota being piloted by a woman who, rather than moving, was determined to fix what must have been the most unruly cowlick of all time, judging by how hard she was fighting with it.

"Tell me I'm pretty!", the voice in my head goaded as I watched her relentless struggle with the cowlick, and I told EL much to his delight. We were both trying to keep our humor as annoyance flooded the cabin.
The problem was that her foot was not on the gas pedal. She was allowing the feeble pull of the engine drag her inexorably but barely up the medium incline of the parking lot. Toyotas as EL explained in rather heated detail; are not exactly known for their power, so merely engine pull had us not moving up the row as much as we were oozing up it. Oozing like molasses. Slow, stupid, infuriating molasses.

I felt the blood and heat rush to my face, just as I could see the blood and heat rush up and over EL's face. I bit down on my lip and considered our options. Apparently EL was thinking the same as he rattled off "I have a 400hp engine in my truck, so if I take my foot off the gas, I am still going at 20mph. Ergo, I have to massage my brake constantly to keep from running over this lady."  I could see his right eye begin to twitch uncontrollably as he stared with a combination of anger and hate at the back of the woman's head as she continued to finger-wrestle that infernal cowlick.

"Tell me I'm pretty!" LE muttered in unison with the voice in my head. I caught my laughter as EL answered it out loud with a resounding "Fuck off!" The look on his face told me that was a little louder than he'd intended. I glanced around to see if anyone was watching us. I saw out his driver's side window a creepy weird kid, maybe 12 years old, just standing there staring at us, or maybe it was just as EL as he was looking a little; annoyed. I suddenly was reminded of the film "Children of the Corn" when that creepy little kid was staring through a store window right before the kids in the town killed all the adults. I caught myself checking to see if our doors were locked.

Because we were oozing so slowly up the row, the air conditioning compressor was not able to keep up with sun. Sunlight was blasting through the windshield, flooding the cab with radiant heat and made me feel sure that the gates of Hell had opening up in the floorboards of my passenger seat. I watched the vinyl of the dash get hotter as the heat fumes rose off the dash and EL's head at the same time. My gaze drifted back up to the woman in the silver Toyota. I watched her spidery fingers dance across her forehead for the 127th time.

"Tell me I'm fucking pretty!" the voice in my head shouted. "Goddamn it!" EL yelled out, unsure if he was speaking to the voices in my head, the voices in his or the self absorbed woman ahead of us. I was beginning to worry that he was reaching a point of having flashbacks and going to head into the avenue of martial law and just take her out. Before I knew it, he had his steering wheel in some sort of choke hold and was chewing on it as if he were Mike Tyson and his steering wheel was Evander's ear. "Move, you asshole!" he yelled at the windshield. I imagine him getting out of the truck and going up to the Toyota and fixing her damn hair himself. Suddenly I was reminded of the movie "Last of the Mohicans" and I imagine one of the Native American warriors coming back from a battle with a handful of fresh scalps he had collected, only to sit down on his buffalo hide blanket to notice that one of the scalps had an unruly cowlick, and I imagined the warrior slowly going insane as he perpetually tried to fix the cowlick on the scalp for all eternity. It was then that I realized that EL had moved from chewing on the steering wheel in rage to chewing on his left arm. I suspect his primordial mind had decided it was some kind of metaphorical wolf trapped in a bear trap and was trying to chew off a limb to earn it's freedom. He seemed to come to his senses and looked around at me to see if I had noticed him maiming himself.

I glanced around and noticed that, thankfully, the creepy kid was gone at least. That was a plus. I then watched as EL laid his left arm in the direct sunlight on the dash and allowed the scoring, lava-like heat to cauterize his  wounds. I rolled down the window to let the smell of burning flesh clear out of the truck and my gaze returned to the lady in the car in front of us, still o-o-z-i-n-g up the impossibly long and impossibly packed parking lot row.
She was unaffected. Her entire world revolved around her cowlick and she was oblivious to anything else. Sure, there were other people in the parking lot who clearly had taken note of our progressing meltdown, but so far I heard no sirens. All was well! I looked over to my left and saw that the creepy kid was back and staring at us again. However, now he had ice cream and was eating it while watching us. I rolled my window back up and checked the door locks again. Creepy fucker, I heard EL mutter. At least the cops weren't called, I tried to reassure myself.

I looked back at the lady in the Toyota and got into a delirious giggle-fit. Thinking about the cops forced an image into my mind I was not prepared for. I saw EL, as a cop, approaching her window on a traffic stop. My feverish brain imagined her rolling her window down and as he said "Ma'am, do you know why I pulled you over?" as she continued to finger-bang her cowlick, and before she could answer, he whipped out from behind his back, a taser the size of a rocket launcher and written on the side of it in giant letters was "Super Rhinostopper 5000 Plus" and before she could move, in my fantasy, he put the Super Rhinostopper 5000 Plus mega taser directly on her cowlick and pulled the trigger, unleashing so many millions of volts that the Ajax nuclear plant temporarily has to revert to its backup generators. I laughed out loud until I was crying. My laughter only came to a stop when I glanced over and saw both EL and creepy kid staring at me. It brought a sudden stop to brief moment of joy.

"Where the hell are your parents, kid?" EL yelled at his window. "Get the hell away from my truck!" The kid blinked once and took another bite of his ice cream. He turned and looked forward and took a deep breath, ready to unleash a mighty torrent of profanity at his windshield meant for the lady in the Toyota I'm sure. That is when I saw it.

I saw reverse lights come on.

They were not hers, no. They belonged to a black and gray Ford F-150 Platinum edition that was maybe 9 or 10 parking spots ahead of the Toyota. I knew she didn't see them because her gaze had not left her cowlick in hours. I knew he could not see her because parked on his right side was a white panel van. Who is still buying panel vans? This one was pure white and without a window anywhere. All it needed was to have "Free Candy" painted on the side to complete the package. Because this thing had no windows, the guy in the truck was going to be backing out blind. Right into the pathway of cowlick.

What were we to do? Honk the horn? Will she understand what EL was trying to say? Probably not. He'd been having a full blown meltdown for the last 20 minutes, so anything he did at this point was going to be viewed with a lot of suspicion. Of course, she was moving so slowly, he could have just put the truck in park and walk up to her window and warn her, but again....considering his meltdown, she might as easily pull a gun on him before he could explain as not. Finally, I reminded him that she HAD been torturing us by driving so slowly and she was the source of all evil and misery in the world as far as I could tell, so we decided to leave her to her fate.
Another bizarre image came to my mind. I imagined the Ford backing up and instead of a rear bumper, the truck had a huge chrome comb on the rear instead, and as he backed over the hood of her car, the chrome comb-bumper would glide off her head, finally fixing her fucking cowlick once and for all.

"Tell me I AM PRETTY!" yelled the voice in my head, and I giggled while whispering as much to EL. "Hell no!," he shouted back at me now rather agitated. " How about I tell you that you are about to have a Ford sitting on your face! How about I tell you that you are bleeding!" he yelled at no one in particular and laughed manically. I happened to glance over my left shoulder and chuckling at his annoyance and there was that freaking kid, still staring at us. EL noticed the kid at the same time I did and audibly growled. "What the fuck is your problem, kid?" he finally yelled. The little bastard narrowed his eyes at him, snarled and gave EL the finger. For a moment, I was torn over EL's reaction.

I weighed his options. I am not sure what the laws are when it comes to parking lot street fighting between a grown man and a 12 year old demon possessed creepy bastard of a kid. Then the thought occurred to me - "What if this kid is like one of those kids that come from a long line of Ju-Jitsu families and has been getting trained on choke holds since he was 2, which means he has been training for over a decade now? What if EL got out of the truck and caught an ass-whoopin' at the hands of a 12 year old and ended up face down with him mushing what is left of his ice cream on EL's bald head as he strikes a victory pose?"

That is when I heard the crunch.

I missed it! I was so fixated on the creepy Ju-Jitsu ice cream stalker kid that I didn't get to see the Ford truck back into the cowlick lady. EL did and was grinning from ear to hear. Things were looking up for him if the laughter bubbling from his lips were any indication. The driver of the truck was already out and looking at his truck. The impact was slow, so I doubt much damage was done. But I swear to you, I will remember until the day I die the look on his face. I caught the exact moment on his face when he looked at the driver of the Toyota that he had backed into. He obviously was checking to see if she was ok, but much to his surprise, when he looked at her....she was looking in her rear view mirror trying to fix her hair.

EL no longer able to contain the overwhelming energy crackling around us in the cabin rolled down his window and leaned his head out and yelled at the driver of the truck - "Tell her she is pretty!"