Chasing Cars

A friend of mine has a unique way of walking her dog.

She puts her dog in her car, drives to the base of this hill in her town and then lets her dog out.  The dog promptly trots to the top of the hill as she follows him in her car.

Once they both reach the top of the hill, she drives downhill and the dog chases her.

At the bottom of the hill, she opens her car door, the dog jumps in and the walk is over.


Back when I had a dog, a walk included a leash and of course, it included me walking as well.

Maybe she is smarter than me or better yet, lazier.  It could be possible that I am simply jealous that I never taught my own dog how to chase cars.  Then again, the very first dog I ever owned was killed chasing a car so it could be I have a lot of bitterness left from my days as a kid.

I remember very little about my first dog, Smokey, except his obsession with chasing cars.

As analytical as I am now, I may have been worse as a kid.  I questioned everything.




I always wondered why a dog would chase a car.  Cars don't look like giant tennis balls nor do they look like cats.  A dog really has no chance of catching a car and if he does catch the car, then what?

And if I think about it, some of us are no different.

We chase unattainable things.  We target something that logically will do us no good if we happen to catch it.

It's almost like some of us just enjoy the pursuit more than the actual capture.

I think back to those days of high school when I would watch girls chase after boys with bad intentions.  They would throw themselves at them; only to be disappointed when they were used and discarded.


I think back to the many times I would seek acceptance by others by choosing to join them in self-destructive means that my conscience would otherwise tell me to avoid.

I think of the friend that was searching for the meaning of his own life by drinking himself into a stupor every damn night for a decade.  His happiness was never attained until he swallowed his 5th shot of vodka.

Chasing cars.  Some of us are sick.  We are too busy chasing things we shouldn't.  We are clinging to some imaginary ideals that we, for some damned reason, believe is out there waiting for us.

We ignore the obvious because the pursuit seems better than the capture.

Maybe life would be less complicated if we didn't waste so much time chasing cars.

Maybe the key to happiness and capturing that elusive dream of being loved is simply to slow down and spend more time dealing with...

Parked cars.