Pablo Vista winds up a hill and stops at a cul-de-sac. Most of the houses are attractively landscaped. Some had their lawns taken out when water shortages began and substituted tan bark and shrubs. I bought an eleven-and-a-half ton "mountain," had one-fourth of it buried in the ground so it would stay put and planted a cedar next to it. It looked great. By my front door a fountain featured a lady pouring water from an ornate vase.
Paula lived two houses down the street when she wasn't living at my place. Her children lived with their father, and she worked part time as a nurse. She had a lot of free time, some of which she spent on her lawn, fussing with it constantly, watering, mowing, and clipping. At the south end of her property was a stop sign, identical to the one across the street from me. They both had something in common-nobody ever stopped at either one them. Albert Miller's German shepherd stopped a few times daily as did some of his male friends, but everyone else ignored them.
One morning we planned a shopping trip to "Lucky's." Located near the Hilltop Mall entrance, it always had plenty of parking and yellow-bagged merchandise. Yellow meant generic or "Lucky's own brand"-cheaper than the stuff with fancy labels. I asked Paula to edit my grocery list.
"Anything you think I don't need, ink it out, OK?"
"Roger," said Paula and began to scribble.
On the way to the mall a Jaguar passed me, switched lanes and stopped a fraction of an inch in front of my hood before the light turned red. I saw both of us toothless, limbless, and inside oxygen tents, drinking finely chopped liver and broccoli spears from a straw. The spinach they'd feed us by spoon. It wasn't a cheerful picture.
I had learned quite a bit at my former job as a construction dispatcher. In fact, at the time I was one of only two women in the greater Bay Area who held that job. Truck drivers have a language all their own and only an insider would dare to use it. The drivers would have been proud of what I remembered. I vocalized some of their favorites and Paula sat there with her mouth open. "Wow," she said, "and all the time I thought you were a sophisticated person." She moved her sunglasses to the tip of her nose and gave me that "I don't believe this" look.
We got to Lucky's where I bought fifty pounds of yellow dog food, one carton of yellow cigarettes and some Gallo Burgundy. That was all Paula had left on my list. It was useless to argue with her; I should have been more specific. My offer to let her walk home met with a negative response.
On the way home I almost ran over a policeman leaning against OUR stop sign. He must have driven an invisible police car, because I sure couldn't see one. He already had his pad out. I was sure he didn't want my autograph and I started to talk real fast. I said I thought it didn't make sense to drive thirty feet from my house and then stop; that this wasn't good for the engine; the plugs would get plugged and the valves would get hot and negative things would happen to the points. Not to mention the wear and tear on the brakes. He was a patient man.
"Where did you get all this automotive information?"
"From my son!"
"How old is your son?"
"Nine."
His lips quivered as though he was about to smile, but he controlled that in time.
Paula mentioned she had ice cream in the trunk and he let her go since we were parked in front of her house.
With a flamboyant gesture, he handed me my ticket. "Have a nice day," he said
Since that day I've had a healthy respect for stop signs (and other signs), and if it isn't "yellow" I don't buy it.
