Stephen Paul Skinner

Our new 2010 Trucks have heated steering wheels. That's right. Your ultra sensitive truck driving hands will never have to feel the icy sting of the wheel again. If you read about the history of Chrysler from their perspective, you will learn that Chrysler has patented more innovations that Ford and GMC combined. Things like heated steering wheels are, in my opinion, along the same line as bacon flavored mayonnaise, useless, excessive, and utterly American.

Our new sales guy has been in the car business for years. When I ask him if he could change his name to any other than the one he has, he tells it would be Stephen Paul Skinner. He scratches his freckled bald head, puts his mouth to a make shift blowgun and *pops* a stray balloon at the ceiling. "Push pins," he says, utterly delighted with himself. "It shoots push pins. Do you got any?" When I ask him why he chose that name, he tells me that his birth mother gave him that name before she put him up for adoption. She didn't want his birth certificate to not have a name. It was eventually changed by his adopted parents, and he learned his original name years later.

Stephen Paul Skinner.

His one link to his mother. Three proper nouns. They give cause to wonder. Stephen Paul Skinner loads up another push pin and *pop* goes another balloon. The phone calls are flooding in. Customers are looking to get their vehicles fixed, looking to complain, every once in a while one will want to buy a new vehicle. Something that is reliable, affordable, and gets good gas mileage. Most of them won't be able to afford anything, which shouldn't come as a surprise in this economy. This is a time for cutbacks. HEB brand groceries and cheap toilet paper. But if any of you need a heated steering wheel in your giant-ass pick up truck, I have one question for you.

Really?