Dear Car Owner,

You may have noticed the dent on the left side of your car. If not, allow me to draw your attention to it now. As you can see, it is there, and so is this note, and now two and two are getting put together in your head. Allow me to confirm your suspicions: The dent and note are connected. I have dented your car and wish to apologize for it.

Got it pretty good there, didn’t I? You get that kind of denting action from your core muscles; that’s where the power is.

One question you’re certainly asking by now is, “How can this note be so long?” Or perhaps, “How can this fucking note be so long?” depending on your level of anger. The note’s length is due to the fact that this is not just a simple note of apology, nor an offer to pay for the damages, nor an attempt to identify myself, nor really an endeavor to do anything concrete about this situation at all. Those are simple matters, briefly explained. I’ve got different motives, which I’ll get in to in due time, but first and foremost, I guess I just wanted to explain myself so that you don’t hate me forever. I have this thing where I can’t be hated. Who likes being hated? I bet you don’t. You see? We already have something in common.

(I also like puppies and chocolate ice cream and vaginal sex. See? More things we have in common. These things forming right now? They’re called bonds. They may be awkward, uncomfortable bonds, like an uncle hugging you from behind, but they’re real. Don’t try to struggle.)

Where was I? Oh right, the dent. That actually has a funny story, and I encourage you to sit down while reading it, if only to brace yourself for the deluge of mirth that’s about to spray all over your face like a dirty mouthwash commercial. Sit down in the car, maybe put the seat back a couple of notches and relax. Also put the key in the ignition and have a look at the gas gauge. How’s that look? Please keep relaxing, it’s critical to keep relaxing; that deluge of mirth will shatter you if you remain tense.

That’s funny. You don’t remember pushing your car to work this morning.

Some gas is missing, isn’t it? Previously I have noticed that your car was parked here unattended for hours every day, I guess because you work nearby. Congratulations! In this economy, having steady work is good news. I certainly don’t have that luxury, as you may have gathered by my ability to stake out parked cars for entire days. Truly, you are one of the lucky ones, and I hope you remember your fortune throughout this, as your dent is repaired, and your gas tank is refilled, and your car is seized by the police.

About that coming seizure: Having noticed the car was available from late morning throughout the early afternoon every weekday, I decided to borrow it. You might say that I stole it, and the courts would probably agree, but with the car back in your possession (not withstanding the fact that the police will shortly be seizing it from you), I think that morally what I did can’t be considered stealing. “Nah, he’s OK,” I imagine Jesus saying, with a dismissive hand wave.

“Relax.”

So, having not stolen your car, I proceeded to drive it into the deep woods, where my cousin makes bootleg Louis Vuitton goods out of this massive roll of LV-branded leather he bought off a shady Chinese guy a few months ago. We distribute these fine, cheap goods through a network of dealers who are, as you can imagine, all incredibly unethical. You try getting a Corporate Social Responsibility report from a guy whose entire operation is a blanket and a fast pair of shoes. That’s why I needed your car in the first place. Given the absolute surety I have that my distribution chain will snitch on me the second they’re busted — which they are, at an amusingly high rate — I have to disguise my identity using borrowed cars and a variety of not-borrowed wigs. I can’t really return the wigs for hygiene reasons, and if I’m being honest, that probably should have stopped me from stealing the wigs in the first place as well.

“Ewwwwwwwgh.”

Anyway, after loading up the trunk with Louis Vuitton Slankets and codpieces and car bras, I left the deep woods and returned back to civilization, or at least the kind of civilization that buys fake LV Slankets and codpieces and car bras.

So many regrettable things in this picture, and amazingly, GM was responsible for only one of them.

But just as I completed my last delivery, flashing lights filled the rearview mirror. I presumed at the time that the cops had finally gotten wind of me, but now I wonder if they were looking for your car specifically. Is it possible you are yourself a wanted felon? You might not even know; I kind of just fell into felony myself. Have you perjured yourself, perhaps? That’s an easy one to miss.

The resulting chase was fantastic, and if you are at all curious what your car can do at the edges of its performance envelope, I highly encourage you to check out the evening news tonight. Big dirty old four-wheel drifts around hairpins, and bootleg turns, and this one insane jump off of one of those car-transporting trucks over a school bus full of clapping children. You will shit, as will, I suppose, your insurance company.

Seconds later, alt.sex.slashpics.flo.poop is created …

The dent! I almost forgot about the dent, that beautiful dent that started this whole note-reading journey. Well, after my escape, I returned the car here, unmolested. And then deliberately smashed the door with a tire iron. “Fuck you, door,” I said, meaning every word of it.

You see, I needed some visible damage to the car, something beyond the horrendous but unseen suspension damage I’d already caused. I needed something you’d notice, something to make you angry, and something to make you read the note under your windshield. The entire note. Including the longer words that you probably had to read twice. I’m guessing it took you between three to five minutes to read this, which turns out to be the average response time for our city’s finest for high-priority calls. If I’ve timed this right — and I’ve put in a lot of effort on this point — then you should be hearing the sirens now, coming to arrest the faux-couture Slanket deliveryman who, thanks to a lot of evidence I’ve left in the trunk, they will think is you. It turns out that I’ve actually been watching you this whole time — Hi there! — waiting for you to find the note, before I called the po-po.

Why would I do such a thing, you ask? Because of the dent, man, because of the dent. Not this dent. The first dent. The dent that YOU made six months ago, when you levered your enormous ass out of your tiny car, smashing the door into the side of MY car. It took me that long to hunt you down, that long to set up a fake designer leather goods racket, that long to save up for and attend a three-day stunt driving school. That long to concoct just the right delay in a batch of disappearing ink. Are the words getting fainter now? Well hopefully you’ll have just enough time to read this last sentence, a homily of sorts, admonishing you to leave a fucking note the next time you dent someone’s car.

____________________

For more life lessons from Bucholz, check out How to Win a Fight Against 20 Children and How to Take Naked Pictures of People.