On Sunday I was driving John and Treasa home after they helped me move because they are good kind fabulous people. A white Nissan Sentra pulled up next to us at a stoplight somewhere on Market, for all you Ballard citizens reading from home.
In the car were three skinny white punky-looking guys. Their radio was playing some sort of hip-hoppy music that we all kind of liked in our tired unfocused way. I hit all my radio buttons, trying to see if I could find the same song. One of the guys was holding a cigarette in a really weird way, like not between his index and middle finger, but between his thumb and his index, with the rest of his fingers curled around it somehow. I didn’t understand why you would hold a burning piece of paper in such a manner but I have to admit it did make him look a little more punk rock. It sort of counterbalanced the fact that he was riding shotgun in a white Nissan Sentra on Market Street in Ballard.
Now, we’d just been talking about pimp hands (a subject I cannot let lay dormant for long) and how it should be a law that you have to do pimp hands at every stoplight. (Not at stop signs though, that’s too much). Like, it should be on the drivers’ test and if you don’t do pimp hands when you come to complete stop at a light and you don’t do them well, the driver test giver person makes a little note and then you fail the test, even if you mastered three-point turns and parallel parking. Also, we thought it would be a very good idea if hydraulics were mandatory in all cars, regardless of make or year or model. Every car, even beige Toyota Corollas, should have to have jumping capability. What should happen is that you’re driving along the street and there’s a cop behind you and he puts the lights on and pulls you over and you’re like, is there a problem officer? And he’s like, did you know that you’ve been driving along for eight city blocks without activating your hydraulics? And then you have to be all shocked, like, but I just took it in for my 50,000 mile muffler-oil-and-hydraulics checkup! It should be fine! I don’t know what happened! And the cop says, all right son, I’ll let you off with a warning this time but I’d like to see a little more jumping action here from now on and you breathe a sigh of relief and hit the Jump button on the dashboard and it’s all good and you’re glad you didn’t get a ticket.
So this was the kind of mood we were in as this car pulled up next to us, playing its song. I guess the smoker punk saw me trying to find the song.
Punk: You like that?
Chiara: Uh, yeah!
Punk: That’s the new [bibbety-boo name of his band that I don’t remember].
Chiara, Treasa, and John: [Nod sagely as if they have any idea what this means]
Punk: That was cut less than eight hours ago.
Chiara: Yeah! Cool! It makes me want to do pimp hands!
Punk: Huh?
Chiara: You know! Pimp hands! [demonstrates pimp hands]
John: Pimp ha-ands! Pimp ha-ands! [demonstrates pimp hands as well]
Punk: Oh. Is that pimp hands?
Chiara: It’s totally pimp hands! That track makes me want to do pimp hands! That’s how good it is! Pimp hands!
John: Pimp hands!
Punk: [drives away as light changes]
Treasa: Oh, man. That was so weird. Who are they? Why are they driving a Nissan?
John: It’s how they bring their message to the people. Like, they record the song and within eight hours they have to take it to the streets and see how people like it.
Chiara: They gauge this by recording how many people do pimp hands at each intersection.
John: Yeah, they have a Pimp-Hands-To-Intersection ratio and they decide which song goes on the album based on its ratio.
Chiara: “Well, this only got four pimp hands out of fifteen intersections so it’s going on the B-side if anywhere at all.”
John: I love how you called it a “track.”
Chiara: It made sense at the time.
John: Pimp hands!
Chiara: Pimp hands!