Knucklheads And Goths

It being December, it is a time to celebrate. Yeah, Christmas fr sure, but also the annual 10 Best issue of Car & Driver -- now in its 26th year this year. To car lovers, it's a wonderful thing: Not just the 10 best cars, but also the 10 best photos, tall tales and true stories.

At the very tail end of this years issue, presented as one of the "10 best uses of duct tape" stories, I found this, which I share in its entirety.

Knuckleheads and Goths

As a member of the clergy, I refer to duct tape in its ecclesiastical designation, "God on a Roll," becaues it fixes everything.

A while back, I was a youth minister at the biggest church of all our congregations. I was doing my job so well, they fired me a year later. Seems the kids I was bringing into the youth group were not the kids they wanted -- skaters, Goths, knuckleheads who needed a connection to the Big Guy. So I was fired.

I found another church and prepared to move. Amongst my stuff was a built-from-scratch barbecue smoker that held sentimental attachment. As I was hammering down the freeway in my truck, pulling a loaded trailer, the smoker began to move and shift about and broke the ropes and tie-downs. I stopped three or four times to fix it, but to no avail. So I pulled over a last time and agonized over what to do. I was in the middle of nowhere and it was after midnight and I had no more rope.

I sat there on the end of the trailer knowing I was going to have to dump the coooker over the side. I took a big dip of Copenhagen and began to say my goodbyes. As I walked around to the passenger side of my truck to get a box knife to cut it loose, I spotted a Wal-Mart bag lying alongside the road. I went to pick it up, knowing it contained either soiled diapers or a human head, but lo and behold, it contained three brand-new rolls of duct tape. Which I used to secure my cooker to the trailer for the rest of the trip.

Coincidence? I don't think so.

The Reverend Dan Bubach
Palestine, Texas

Nor do I. Thanks, Rev. Dan, for a great story. Hope you're reaching all the Goths and knuckleheads in Palestine, Texas.