random thoughts – Day 1,122 – (Thursday) – surprise details

Sasquatch!?!

While backing into the driveway at home after work on Wednesday, I turned to look out the back window. Yes, the car has a rear-view camera, and no, I don’t usually use it.

I don’t really trust the rear-view camera thingy ever since a couple times it was all splattered over with highway salt and grime and wasn’t showing the view back there anyway. So I do the torso twist that requires swearing at the seat belt that wants to pin me to the seat facing forward. Sometimes the torso twist cracks my spine and feels pretty good, a bonus to traveling in reverse the old-fashioned way, looking over the shoulder, without benefit of modern technology.

While backing in, something on the back window above the rear wiper caught my eye. It is the tiny black silhouette of some Sasquatch type critter climbing the hump where the arm mechanism is mounted. I hadn’t noticed it before even though I’ve had the Renegade for almost two years. 

Ciao baby!

It felt kind of embarrassing realizing I’ve been backing into the driveway for one year and ten months and didn’t notice the little surprise silhouette until yesterday. There are now three little surprises I’ve found in the Jeep, and in no case was I actually looking for any of them. 

The first one found was inside the gas door and is a rather large embossed spider with a conversation bubble that says “Ciao Baby.” I must confess that I didn't see this the first million times I got gas. Now I smile every time I see it. Yes, indeed, ciao baby.

Stuck in traffic one morning, many months after I got the vehicle, I noticed an irregularity in the black circles at the edge of the windshield near the state inspection sticker. At first, I panicked a bit because I thought I was trapped in the car in traffic with some sort of creepy insect. It turned out to not be a creepy bug at all, but a fun little outline of a Jeep on a climbing adventure up the edge of the windshield. And yesterday, it was Sasquatch. 

Tiny Jeep climbing the windshield.

Now, I’m resisting the urge to go through the car inch by inch to look for more little surprises. On the one had, it might be fun to have a full inventory. Then again, would it lose the sense of delight and not be as fun if found while searching?