Mrs. Ram's Jams

Please explain to me WHY MY HUBCAPS KEEP FALLING OFF!!!! [after the fact stage directions:  Mrs. Ram’s Jams says this with the same cadence, intensity, and emotion as Lloyd Christmas’s infamous quote, “Our pets heads are falling off!” She ends in a flailed, crumpled heap upon the ground, spent from her effort.]

This is not a Mrs. Ram’s Jams terrible euphemism for a flimsy bra not doing its job nor a metaphor for losing my mind. This is for real. And, I AM LOSING MY MIND. (and I might need new bras?)

This morning I arrived at work and realized that one of my hubcaps was missing.

An isolated incident wouldn’t normally force me to all caps shout, but this is the third hubcap to declare MIA status in five months.

Has my Camry developed an affliction? A car strain of influenza, carfluenza?

It’s spreading like a vanishing rash. One hubcap falls off, I order a new one, and then a different one disappears.  

First, the back passenger’s side hubcap fell victim. Then the back driver’s side was claimed. This morning, it attacked my front driver’s side wheel. Why is the contagion only communicable clockwise???? One survivor remains. I DON’T KNOW IF I CAN HANDLE THE LOSS OF THE FOURTH ONE.   

Here’s a list of why they might be falling off like Petey the bird’s head in Dumb in Dumber:

1. Five years ago, the Toyota dealership infected my car with a delayed release automobile nerve agent, set to begin detonating one month before car payoff, that wields the power to blast one hubcap off every other month. Now that I own my car, they’ve settled on hubcap bimonthly subterfuge from afar to convince me my car is defective and to go buy a fancier model.  I’M ONTO YOU TOYOTA!!!
2. They fall off on the way to work.
3. Queen Elsa, our orange tabby cat, is prying them off with her paws once darkness descends and absconds with them into the field behind the house and uses them for cymbals to play percussion in an ensemble neighborhood kitty rock band.  
4. The Mystery Bandit is stealing them.  (Little Thing blames missing things on “Da Mystery Bandit” and has since she was two.)
5. My students have figured out my address and are stealing my hubcaps in relatiliation for bad grades.  

Hubcap high jinks will not hobble me, dammit. Nor will I allow hubcaps to be my hamartia.  

Thanks for listening to my hubcap harangue.