New installment of The Halves and Half Knots up today. You’ll hate it. I do. I don’t know why I wrote it.

This morning I saw a woman driving a town car with white wall tires. Now, when I say white wall tires I don’t mean with a little stripe running around the circumference of the tire. I mean the entire side of the tire was white. And so was the hubcap. And the car. Gleaming white. With shiny chrome and glistening windows.

I can’t help but think, “Why?” The futility of this gesture startles me. First of all, you have an immaculate car. Second of all, you have the world, which likes to lean toward dirtiness and chaos.

Put the two together and . . . what will win? Yep. Chaos.

I’m not a car guy. To me a car is a way to move around without getting my feet wet. It’s an enclosed CD player that allows me to move down the highway quickly, without getting run over. It allows me to be lazy.

Having an immaculate car seems stupid. It’s more work than it needs to be. You can never win. It becomes a museum that no one can soil without punishment of death.

Can you take it on a country drive? No, too much mud. Can’t take it through the city because the sediment in the air will cause it to get dirty. I suppose all you can do is keep this car in your driveway. Wait, nix that, birds will see it as a beacon for target practice.

So what do you do? Clean it every weekend? That doesn’t seem like much fun. And you certainly shouldn’t be able to pay someone to wash your car for you every week. That just seems like a waste of money. Unnecessary extravagance for a vehicle.

So why? Why have a white car?

I have my theory.

This little old woman, who clearly cannot clean this car on her own every week, has a dirty secret. She kills delivery mean with a shovel and then buries them in the basement. Her little old sister, who lives alone with her, cannot live with the knowledge of her sister’s crimes but is fearful of losing her only companion and living alone should she turn her in.

So, every week she goes out and polishes her sister’s car until it shines. So that, on the outside, her gleaming white car is the antitheses of the atrocities hidden with in the heart of this lonely old woman. Her sister’s white car hides the hidden heart of darkness in their home.

Or maybe this little old woman is anal and really likes clean things. She probably throws out her socks after one wear because they’ve been soiled.