sludgo’s Mile Markers

This last Saturday evening I met my youngest at the rib place over by the mall. We’ve made it a regular date ever since he moved out of the McBungalow however many years ago. I enjoy seeing him and think he enjoys seeing his dear ol’ dad, but I know full well that in light of his instant-ramen-level cooking skills what he likely enjoys most is having a decent meal once a week, especially if I’m springing for it. No matter. I don’t mind. It’s become a highlight of my week. I always buy a couple of scratch-off tickets for us—the five dollar kind—and we sit in our favorite booth scratching away, hoping to win big bucks as we chat about this and that and nosh on our racks of baby backs and stacks of sweet Vidalia beer-battered onion rings before washing everything down with a Long Island iced tea for me and a Dr. Pepper for the kiddo. It’s a good time. Like I said, a highlight of my week.

That night I’d been running late and had texted him and told him to go ahead and order, and when I got there our drinks and rings were already on the table. I sat down and apologized for my tardiness but he just shrugged his shoulders and gave me a goofy grin. I cut to the chase and asked him what that was all about and he said he had some sludgo news for me. Sludgo news? For me? Do tell.

“You’ve made Google, Dad.”

“What?”

“Google. You know Google, right?”

“Oh for Pete’s sake, yes my young son, your dinosaur dad knows Google. Duh.”

“Well, you’ve made it. Or I guess I should say ‘sludgo’ has made it.”

I took a yawning chomp out of an onion ring and a lazy sip of my Long Island.

“I hate to break it to you, dude,” I sniffed, “but that’s no big deal. Everyone’s on Google these days. At least that’s how I’ve always understood things.”

“No, Dad” he said, shaking his head. “What I’m talking about is different than that. See, last night I was up late and bored and messing around on the web and for the heck of it typed in a search for ‘sludgo’ on Google to see what would come up and along with all the usual links to the sludgo website and the Bring a Trailer-related stuff there was a pretty lengthy profile about sludgo himself written by Gemini, Google’s artificial intelligence bot. And, well, having Gemini write about you is sort of a big deal these days in Technoland. It’s kind of like ‘sludgo’ has been formally recognized and etched into Digital History where he’ll live forever and ever now.”

I nodded dumbly then took another bite of my ring. Still had no clue what he was talking about.

“Anyway,” he continued, “the profile was an interesting read and even though Gemini got your real name completely wrong, the details it mentioned about other things ‘sludgo’ were all pretty accurate. Like what sludgo’s background was and how the Mile Markers project happened and what the entries were about and how many of them there’d been and that more recently sludgo had begun the Riding Shotgun project and so on and so on. But what really caught my attention was the notation that as a writer sludgo was regularly reaching an enormous audience on the Bring a Trailer platform. Gemini reported that visitors to the site are currently estimated to number in the hundreds of thousands if not millions per month so it was reasonable to assume that sludgo’s readership was sizable as well, and that’s when I had the brilliant idea that you should…”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait…” I interrupted, needing to digest more than just my onion ring. I pushed myself away from the table, all the way back in my seat. Felt a smidge dizzy. Partially from the booze I suppose but mostly from the firehose of sludgo news spewing forth from the kid. Thankfully, he read the room correctly and mercifully paused a moment to take a big swig of Dr. Pepper and a bite of his ring, but then he narrowed his eyes at me and leaned forward in his chair.

“Dad, do you remember at the beginning of The Graduate during the house-party scene where Mr. McGuire takes Benjamin out poolside and gives him an insider’s tip on how to get rich?”

“Sure—when he tells Ben he has just one word for him: ‘Plastics.’”

The youngest’s dark-brown eyes sparked with delight.

“Well Benjamin,” he said with a mischievous smile, “this time instead of just having one word for you, Mr. Mcguire has three.”

“Oh he does, does he?”

“Yes, he does, and those words are: ’Cameo. Birthday. Greetings.’”

I burst out laughing. Hard. So hard I began coughing and choking up my onion ring. Cleared my throat with a long draw of my drink then collected myself, shaking my head in disbelief at how crazy this whole sludgo thing had become. Was once again amazed at how a silly nickname my drunken bandmates had given me so long ago had accompanied me on a journey I never dreamt I’d take. I’ve said it before elsewhere and often that when Bring a Trailer originally approached me with the Mile Marker project I didn’t think it would fly, certain that the first installment would drop with a resounding thud and any future entries would be immediately and indefinitely shelved for lack of interest. I mean, honestly, the whole notion seemed pretty far-fetched. Why would anyone surfing a burgeoning automotive auction website take the time to slow down and read some sappy sepia-tinted nostalgic blurb about a crusty old MGB that was written by its owner, a long-winded slow-leaking hayseed from a little podunk town in North Dakota? A preposterous proposal from the start to be sure. But as I sat there in the rib joint with the kid it hit me that in only a few days it would be eight years since that first Mile Marker popped up on the site. Two-hundred twenty-one of them followed and more were scheduled to come. Unreal.

On the way home that night I decided it would be timely to frame Mile Marker 223 as an anniversary piece. After all, eight years was nothing to sneeze at. So at this juncture I’ll take a break from storytelling, using the occasion instead to sincerely thank BaT and all the BaT-sters for making the series what it’s become. While I’m at it I’ll also take the opportunity to thank the same cast of characters for the success of the newly-hatched Riding Shotgun project. The enthusiastic support and encouragement I’ve received from so many over the years has been appreciated immeasurably and is absolutely not taken for granted. Of note, as I worked on this installment I discovered no matter how hard I searched I couldn’t find words that adequately described how all of this made me feel. ‘Joyful’ came closest but still fell far short. I’m just happy everyone seems to be enjoying the projects as much as I’m enjoying them. And now, with all that said I’ll excuse myself and exit stage left, wishing you and yours peace and health and prosperity and, of course, the Happiest of Birthdays.

Ahem.