Don’t become what I almost was.

Today I got a very thought provoking email from someone. It said, and I quote, “Still no luck engrailing it?” As soon as I read it, I was floored by the sheer possibilities of what this could mean. There was more to the letter, but I didn’t bother to read it. Obviously, only the opening line was important. The spelling was a little off, perhaps the person who sent it (a kind reader of Jux, no doubt) was young or using one of those confangled FrogPads . Either way, I could only thank them for writing me such a letter. It’s changed my world.

It became obvious to me immediately that no , I hadn’t had any luck engrailing “it”. In fact, I was apparently so far behind the rest of the world (as the sender guessed correctly and discretely brought to my attention, all without laying blame) that I didn’t even know what engrailing was , much less the “it” I was supposed to apply it to. Trying my best to hide my ignorance, I began research.

According to the dictionary, to engrail something, you indent it (usually to form an edging or border) with small curves. Think of what might happen if a big chunk of hail hit a car. Exactly! Now that I knew what engrailing was, I just had to figure out what “it” was.

Could it be my…nah, too painful.

Could it be Pennywise the Clown? Too fictional, I thought.

Finally, I got it. Everyone must be engrailing their cars! Kids today do all sorts of crazy stuff to their fine autos in order to look cool, and maybe after some really suave guy got caught in a hail storm, this caught on! It made perfect sense!

It seemed a fairly straightforward modification to make, but thinking back to the email, I realized that at least some people must fail in this endeavor. After all, it said still no luck. It had to be more difficult than I thought. Yet, I could always buy another car. I went and picked up an old ball hammer and set to work. By the end of a Saturday, I had a beautifully engrailed Grand Prix.

All in all, I’d say I did a pretty good job. It’s gotten stares. Some of them are bewildered, but most seem to appreciate just what I’ve done. I don’t see many others like mine yet, but I do live in a small town. And, maybe I’m crazy, but I swear the thing goes faster too. It certainly LOOKS faster.

All of which begs the question…have you engrailed it, yet?