The decision is all but made. The proliferation of SUVS, mammoth pick-ups and other monster vehicles have rendered the ordinary passenger car passe. Obsolete. Old-hat. Those who stubbornly cling to the automobile are in denial. Barring a cosmic disaster, the number of massive road machines will continue to escalate to keep pace with the hunger for highway domination and personal power. How do we cope with this assault on the simple sedan? How do we compete with 5’2″ moms looking for someone to run over? Let’s see. We could sell everything and work on a horse ranch in Montana. Hmmnn, that’s a little extreme. Like a vampire, we could hole up by day and drive on nearly deserted streets in the wee hours. A somewhat iffy solution unless we aspire to sort mail for an airline cargo hub. Oh, no, not in this life. Maybe later, as a member of Count Dracula’s Un-Dead. How ’bout we sell out and trade for a long-bed V-8 with extended cab—in other words, become one of them? Sorry, there’s a better idea. We need to raise the stakes and jump-start the economy at the same time. It’s time to get in a sleek, rugged Peterbilt. If big is beautiful, this is the ultimate, baby. Think of it. First-class accommodations. High-tech cockpit. 600 horses under a long-nose design. Stainless-steel grill. Acres of brilliant chrome that make a Harley jealous. This is it—this is the future of personal transportation. SUVS and all their bully cousins are history. Of course, we have to check out a Freightliner, maybe a Kenworth. Yeah, also gotta do something about remodeling the garage.

Khalil Gibran, noted thinker, philosopher, author and poet, said children don’t “belong” to their parents. Rather, they are like arrows launched from a bow and thus they belong to the universe. With all due respect, Mr. Gibran forgot to clue-in the kids. Maybe they got launched all right, but they didn’t stay launched. As the Holiday Inn TV ad campaign truthfully and cleverly revealed, millions of the little darlings show up with a mindset that the family home is their private hotel. They bring their meager possessions, maybe an offspring or two and no prospect of gainful employment. If the trend continues, parents should consider reverting to the concept of family farms. Extended families could live together as was the custom decades ago. Not a bad idea, really. Everybody in the family would actually work and grandparents don’t get shipped off to rot in mindless institutions. If a thirty-something adolescent arrives on the doorstep, Pop meets him with a broad smile and a wide hay rake. “Welcome back home, son; you’re just in time to slop the hogs.”

It begins in the wee, quiet hours. You come awake, as if gently tapped on the shoulder. A whisper? Someone there? A muffled sound? Oh, well, maybe a dream. Deep breath, let the languor settle back in like a gossamer veil. But something is there, nagging. What is it? There, under the sternum, a dull ache, deep. Damn. Probably gas. Change position. No, roll over. No, roll back. Nope, getting worse. Much worse. Better walk it off. That’s a mistake. Better sit up straight. It’s bound to ease off, bound to, bound to, bound to . . . . . no, it intensifies, accelerates. . . . surely, it won’t. . . can’t get any wor. . .dear God. Stagger back to the bedroom, collapse in terror. Call 911. Panic city. This has to be the end. Tell the kids. . . tell the kids. . . remember. . . cremated. . . sorry . . . for . . . The EMS people ask questions, take vitals. Describe the pain? Mel. . . uh. . . uh. . . Gibson. . . Braveheart. . . drawn. . . quartered. . . only his. . . didn’t last. . . this. . . long. But this is . . .unnatural. Through clenched eyes, you peer down past heaving chest to convulsing abdomen — anticipating the horror of an alien raptor fetus erupting through your flesh. That’s silly. Get hold of yourself. At least die with dignity. The truth is you’ve been poisoned. More like arsenic. Blanche Moore has escaped from prison and she broke in to your house because you favor the death penalty. In the back of the meat wagon, it gets worse. Cold and stark. Like a big, square coffin. No shot, no pill, no oxygen. Bumping along through deserted, snow-covered streets. Why are they going so slow, Gertrude? THIS IS AN EMERGENCY. THIS IS MY LIFE.

Pain, they say, is relative. I guess that means pain is strictly in the mind of the beholder. Maybe so. Maybe a twinge for one person is agony for another. Some will say it depends on where it hurts. On the duration of anguish as well as the level. Are migraines the worst? What about back pain that slams you to the ground? To be fair, we should separate natural pain from the inflicted kind. For instance, as grueling as natural childbearing must be, it certainly can’t rank on the misery meter with torture. Thrown on the rack, nailed to a cross, boiled alive — now, these are inventions designed to make a body flinch. But who is in a position to rank pain anyway? Nobody. Hearsay is useless. Until a single individual experiences every method and manner of suffering and scientifically records the measurements, the best we can do is speculate on the hierarchy of pain. Even so, you submit the candidate above for the top ten. A double hit of acute pancreatitis and acute cholecystitis. Life threatening? Theoretically, yes. The most excruciating physical pain this side of the dentist’s office? It’s all relative. But a little advice. If there’s something out there more torturous, keep a 357 magnum handy.