Tale of the Tape
(To the Duct-mobile)

We were coming out of a Chinese restaurant one night last week, and my middle son, Grant, started laughing and pointing at the front of my car.

“Dad, are things so bad with your van that you’re having to use duct tape to hold it together?” he asked.

The rest of the family didn’t believe me when I said I had no idea what he was talking about. But he pointed at the front of the car and laughed again.

I saw where the front bumper on the driver’s side, and part of the headlight was being held into place by a 27-inch strip of duct tape.

Now, I am one of those who are convinced duct tape holds the world together. Books have been written on the subject. I once knew a Macon man whose grandson did an entire report for school on the subject. Got an “A,’’ too. ( I was advisor for a girl from Warner Robins on the Teen Board a few years ago who went to the prom wearing a duct tape dress.)

It was originally developed for the military during World War II to hold together ammunition boxes. Now it has developed a cult following, It has even been known to remove warts.

Back in October, I hit a deer with the van coming back from a trip on a Sunday night, just after dusk. My front bumper on the driver’s side is still smashed in, and the headlight isn’t 100 percent secure.

The mystery behind the duct tape Samaritan is this:

I believe someone was walking through the parking lot, saw my headlight ready to dangle like an eyeball coming out of its socket and reached for his/her duct tape. It was a random act of kindness.

Some of my family members swear the dent in my bumper is even larger than before. They surmise someone hit me in the exact same location and felt guilty, so they patched it with duct tape before walking away.

I find it a source of great amusement. I’m probably not the only guy in Macon, Ga., driving around with a duct tape band-aid.