Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 6, 1994                   TAG: 9407070016
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CAP COP ISN'T DOING HER DUTY

And I realized that the driver hasn't mentioned caps for a long time, and the hat rack in the kitchen is plainly in violation.

This is eerie. The driver is well-known for her devotion to cap distribution. She believes, with the fervor a country girl brings to her convictions, that too many caps hanging in the kitchen look trashy.

She also doesn't like it a whole lot when you leave the microwave door open, fail to put the toaster back where it belongs, or leave peanut-butter fingerprints on the refrigerator.

She also doesn't like grown persons, or kids either, who drink the surplus cereal milk right out of the bowl and who go about with egg yolk stains on the front of their sweatshirts.

I can't explain this sudden disinterest in over-capping. Sure, Ralph. I could just ask her why she hasn't complained, but I got better sense than that.

I'm not one to bother my children with the problems of the aging, but I've wanted to call up one of them and say:

"I don't know what's got into your mother. I've got two more caps in the kitchen than the law allows, and she hasn't said a thing. And my Members Only jacket has been hanging there, unauthorized, since the great ice storm of 1994. Frankly, I'm worried."

No. This is my problem, and I alone will deal with the reality that if the driver continues to ignore the caps in the kitchen something is terribly wrong.

At 3 o'clock, awakened by ominous early morning thunder, I lie awake and wonder if the driver has just stopped caring. Right after my dog Millie jumps into the bathtub during a real good piece of thunder, it comes to me: The driver may have found SOMEONE ELSE!!!

An elitist college professor who spoons up his surplus cereal milk? One of those compulsively neat dweebs who actually open the crumb door on a toaster? A neat peanut-butter eater?

It's time to find out.

Tomorrow I will test the driver. In addition to the illegal caps, I will hang my Radford Bobcat number with the crossed sabers on the front and my green John Deere, with the gold braid on the brim.

If this brings her back to normal, however, I may not be able to keep that lunch date. I'll be too busy putting caps away.