SWARTHOS

Here I am, May 4, 2025, hunched over a scarred kitchen table in the pale morning light, shoveling down my champion’s breakfast—six, sometimes eight boiled eggs, their yolky hearts bursting like tiny suns, chased by a mug of black coffee so bitter it could strip paint off a Buick. This is my ritual, my daily sacrament, a defiant middle finger to the creeping malaise of time. The eggs, they’re a gamble, sure, piling cholesterol like poker chips in my arteries, but I’ve got my ace in the hole: a single statin pill, that miraculous little lozenge, a chemical shaman that whispers promises of clean veins and a heart that won’t quit. Pop it, and I’m bulletproof, ready to wolf down my breakfast with the reckless abandon of a man who’s stared down worse odds than a clogged ticker.

This morning, I’m glued to the flickering glow of Tubi, mainlining old Rockford Files reruns, the kind of gritty, sun-bleached drama that feels like it was shot through a haze of cigarette smoke and regret. Today’s episode hits like a freight train—Rockford, that sly dog, is tearing across some godforsaken desert, hunted by a lunatic piloting a Mack truck, its grille grinning like a chrome-plated death wish. Poor Jim’s not in his sleek Firebird Esprit, oh no, he’s stuck in a rental, a wheezing, gutless contraption slower than a three-legged mule dragging a plow through quicksand. The chase is pure chaos, a high-octane ballet of dust and desperation, and I’m bolted to my chair, egg yolk dribbling down my chin, because this hits too close to home.

Thirty-one years ago, 1994, I was carving through the concrete jungle of the 710 in Los Angeles, rush hour snarling around me like a pack of rabid wolves. I’m in my Eagle Talon, a sporty little beast with just enough zip to make me feel invincible. Then—WHAM—a Mack truck clips my rear, no warning, no mercy. The world spins into a kaleidoscope of asphalt and terror. My car’s a pinball, ricocheting from lane four to the center divide, slammed, spun 360 degrees, then back again, a dizzying carnival ride I didn’t buy a ticket for. Metal screams, windows shatter, tires blow out, and when the chaos finally spits me out, my Talon’s bent in half, a crumpled origami of what used to be a car. Me? Not a scratch. The truck? Long gone, a phantom rig vanishing into the smog, leaving me to choke on the dust of a sig alert that shut down half the freeway. My insurance, those penny-pinching vultures, offered to weld the wreck back together. Weld it! Like I’m supposed to drive a Frankenstein’s monster of a car through the streets of La La Land. No thanks, boys. I took the payout and ran, straight to the dealership, where I laid eyes on my true love: a 1994 Firebird Formula, all sleek lines and raw power, a machine that roared like it was born to outrun Mack trucks and bad decisions alike.

That Firebird’s gone now, sold off in some hazy chapter of my life I barely remember. Nothing lasts forever—not cars, not youth, not even the high of a good Rockford Files chase scene. But I’m still here, pounding eggs, slugging coffee, and laughing at the absurdity of it all. The world’s a madhouse, a high-speed pileup waiting to happen, but as long as I’ve got my statins and my reruns, I’ll keep dodging the Mack trucks, one breakfast at a time.