Write a funny caption!

It's like shooting fish in a barrel, folks.


The actual (and accidentally funny) caption: President Bush returns a crying toddler to his parents at a campaign rally at Georgia Southern University. Bush said Democrats retaking control of Congress would be a victory for terrorists.

My caption: "All I said was that when he grew up, maybe he could be a Congressional page."

Got a better caption? Put it in the comments. And maybe ... just maybe ... there'll be a SPECIAL PRIZE for the winner! (Use of the phrase "special prize" should not infer and does not imply any value, quality, or desirability of prize.)

Pop.

I was putting laundry away in the next room when I heard the pop. The street is four floors below us, and the window was just barely open. The pop was metallic and unmistakably the sound of one car hitting another.

My heart instantly jumped up into my throat. Only moments before, R had gone downstairs with Oliver. They were driving to daycare first, and then R was off to work. I didn't know if they had actually left the garage or not, but I knew that she always took a left out of the garage to go to daycare. That would put her at the intersection below our window.

I looked down to see a green car sitting sideways on the side of the road. Another car, also green, had apparently flown, or spun, halfway up the street that ran by our window and was on the sidewalk.

I saw someone running, and a bystander charged after him and tackled him. I saw his red face and could hear him asking, "What happened?"

"You're drunk," his tackler told him. "You're drunk and you hit someone." I expected him to receive a couple of punches to the face (I might have done it), but it didn't happen.

As I watched all this, I tried to remember. Green sedan. Green sedan. That wasn't our car ... was it?

I didn't mention this earlier, but our family car is off being repaired after some idiot broke in and tried to steal the stereo out of it. (They left it hanging out of the dash, probably because we always keep the detachable faceplace upstairs. It's useless without the matching faceplate.) So R was driving the rental car, and was it green? Brown? Tan? I couldn't remember.

"It's not our car, it's not our car," I chanted to myself as I bolted down four flights of stairs. "It's not our car." I ran around the corner where our cars were parked. "It's not our car."

R was still in the garage, and our rental car was brown.

She saw my saucer-sized eyes and rolled down the window. She was safe. Oliver was safe and blissfully unaware. It wasn't our car. I told her what happened and she shuddered with the same fear I had. She drives by that intersection every day. If she had left a few minutes earlier, then ...

But it wasn't the case. Someone else was t-boned on California Avenue. Someone else's car was left laying in the street. Some other poor person was taken away in the back of an ambulance. I'll pray for their safety and for justice to be served to his assailant. But thank God - it wasn't our car.

Go Tigers!

The Tigers have won two games in Oakland. The game now goes to Detroit, where the Tigers are in perfect position to clinch the pennant and move onto their first World Series since I was a freshman in high school.

I know, for all you suffering Cubs fans and Mariners fans and all the other teams, that 22 years doesn't seem like a long time. But the Tigers were a proud team, and they've had such a long road of despair. They had thirteen consecutive losing seasons before this year. They haven't been close to a contender since the '80s. They deserve to go back to the series.

This year, the Tigers seem to have suddenly become America's team. Many people I know who weren't Tigers fans before the last series have suddenly been charmed by the boys from Detroit. Their wildly exuberant celebration after beating the Yankees was one of the best things I've seen in sports: the champagne toasts to the fans, the victory lap, Leyland's emotions showing - briefly - on the field, the cheers that went on and on and on.

The Tigers don't have many superstar players. Pudge Rodriguez might count as one, although he's made himself into a cog in this team rather than a focal point. Their players are young, not experienced for the most part, and are often described with words like "scrappy" and "gritty." They have heroic young pitchers, one crafty veteran - Kenny Rogers - who's managed to transform from pariah to the mentor in the bullpen.

I love seeing the Tigers playing in October. I love hearing the announcers wax poetic about Kirk Gibson and Al Kaline, about Trammell and Sweet Lou, about Mickey Lolich and 30-game winner Denny McLain. I love hearing the stentorian tones of Ernie Harwell. Hopefully, by this weekend, we'll find out that the ride is going to go on for one more round.