Ma'am, did you know there are two bails of hay in the back of your minivan?

Why, yes.  Yes, I did.   This girl needs a pick-up.  A zero-air conditioned, roll the windows down, sunburned left arm, 800 dollar, cigarette lighter still works, so you'd better not plug your laptop into it unless you're looking to start a fire, cracked rust-colored seat like the skin on some hands working hard to keep things moving in a growing, going direction pick-up.

I'd need a dog.  Definitely.  A dog with his tongue hanging out so far, it nearly cleans the road underneath us.  I'd put rolls of barbed wire worry back there, firewood of the self-consuming variety, compost for the good dirt.  I'd help friends move, even in the summer.  I'd take a load of the past that's been sitting in my basement to some newer, more useful place.

In my pick-up, I'd buy more than three bags of salt for the water softener.  I'd get paper bags of groceries and just toss them in the back like Sally Fields does in Murphy's Romance, and the door would creak when it opened but I wouldn't oil it because this pick-up likes to make a little noise, like the old man who yells from his porch, "Slow down!  Life is passing you by driving that fast!"