Bob's Baba-Boom

Bob is a normal guy, well, what we at Rosemaiden consider a normal guy.



Single, balding on the edges, thin, but with some beer belly
on him. Bob's life is all about his car.


We will never forget when he bought it (his car, that is),
especially because until that day, none had ever seen Bob before.
It was a silver sport Clio, all bright and inviting.


I remember looking around the car park (my kitchen window
happens to overlook it), feeling a sweet sympathy for the little Clio.
All around it there were big powerful cars. A sport Toyota, a flash
BMW, another sport Lexus? even the occasional visitors seem to show off
cars? a massive four by four Mercedes, a Sport Mercedes, even A car I
have only seen on the telly (one of those that have several massive
exhausts hanging from them, making an unbearable noise, and which doors
open up by lifting in the air, as in a UFO. Not that I have ever seen a
UFO, but we all know how the gates of a UFO open up ? I think.)



The point is, had the Clio been mine I would have felt a bit
embarrassed. Yes, I would, I know it is pitiful but is the
truth.


Well, Bob became my instant hero. I called him Bob because I
don't know his name, so it could very well be Bob. He looks like a Bob.
But we've never talked; I don't think he's ever noticed me, washing my
dishes behind the window, right in front of his little silver Clio.



He might not be very handsome, my Bob, or very talkative
(I've tried to say hello to him a couple of times and he has ignored
me, as If I was invisible of something. It seems to be a very common
attitude where I live though), but he was special to me. He loved his
little car, he had chosen it, and he was proud of it. Perhaps that was
the best he could afford, but something inside me told me from the
beginning he genuinely had loved his car from the very first time he
had laid eyes upon it. And he didn't care if the others had very big,
powerful, fashionable, high profile, envy-me cars. He had a bright new
silver Clio, and to him there was nothing better under the
sun.


I saw him getting into 'her' every day, very carefully, not
to hurt 'her' too much, and his smile as the engine roared for the
first time (nothing major, not like the UFO. A soft, sweet still brand
new roar) was just sublime. I remember wishing I was that Clio and had
a Bob to treat me like that!


I saw him every weekend, not missing one, washing it for
hours, and then, when it was well shiny, he would hover it and dust it
with loving hands. Still not conscious of the young woman looking at
him from behind the window.
I didn't hide; I don't like spying on people. He was simply not
interested in women or windows. He was only interested in his little
silver Clio.


The most amazing thing started happening only a few weeks
after he had bought that car. He appeared one day with a set of four
new wheels, and proceeded to changing them, right there, in front of
me.
I was used to seeing the other men washing their cars every so often
(everybody is very proud of their motors around here, having cost them
more than they can easily afford in most cases it is only
understandable), but, changing the wheels?


Thinking that maybe he had had a bad week at work, or some
major family disaster to forget about, I didn't give it much importance
and went back to my cooking.


But a few weeks later the whole process took place, all over
again, right there in front of me.


'He maybe does a lot of miles everyday' I thought. But then,
how could he leave home only at 8:45 in the morning, and come back at
4:30? He must work in the offices in town, not even fifteen minutes
from here!
So what was wrong with him?


Instead of dismissing my Bob as a crazy bloke who didn't have
any friends left because of his obsession with his four-wheeler, I
couldn't help admiring him even more! My Bob was no ordinary man, he
gave his whole self to the object of his affections, two hundred
percent faithful, and why not? Maybe he hadn't chosen to be lonely;
maybe he treated his car like that only because he couldn't find the
woman who deserved him. And so I kept on sighing at the view of his
always spotless little silver Clio with got carefully in and out of
it.


Not many weeks ago, I woke up feeling upset. I didn't know
what about. Something wasn't right. Something about Bob. I could feel
it in the neck of my stomach, like when you have too much wind down
there.. Luckily I hadn't had anything to eat for hours, so I didn't
have to get sick.
But I washed my face, put something on (just in case today Bob decided
to look at my window at last), and rushed downstairs.


It wasn't daytime quite yet, and the light was dimmed and
gloomy. I went towards the sink, leaning on it. The chill from the
stainless still in my naked belly made me jump backwards. Everything
was just fine! Was I silly or what? What had I expected?
My Bob was perfectly alright, getting in his car as every morning (if a
bit early, maybe he had some job to get on with from the day before);
his eyes just as happy as always, and as always as well, as blissfully
ignorant of my trespassing on his intimate moment; his car as silver
and as bright as always? and yet ? hang on ? what' happened to
it?
The little Clio had grown during the last 24 hours; it had become a
beast, still silver, but a beast, completely unworthy of my dear Bob.
My Bob couldn't drive anything like that, didn't he notice? Maybe he
had jumped in the wrong car by mistake! his wasn't the only silver
vehicle in the parking space. I looked around, nervous, but couldn't
see a little Clio anywhere.


Suddenly he looked up, straight into my shocked eyes, and
smiled; and the truth stroke me, like lightening.
My Bob wasn't a Bob at all; he was another Rosemaiden show off. One
that had already lost his hair, and his muscles, and his wife and his
kids in the way, because of his stupid obsession with cars. One who had
noticed my naked self ever morning in the window and decided a little
Clio wasn't the thing to be seen in under the circumstances.
My Bob was just another Justin, or Joshua, or some fashionable name
like that.


I longed to be back at my parent's neighbourhood, where all
men were regular Bobs, and Pauls, and Daves, and Eddies, who drove old
massive cars, cars without fashionable names, cars in yellow, in red,
in blue? men who loved and lusted for their cars and their women, and
ate a smelly fried breakfast every morning.


Britain might have baba-boom now, but it certainly has gone
to the pot.