My Uncle's car was a 2013 Chevy Spark. I always thought it looked like a squat grey beetle, the prey animal of the car world, a creature that through centuries of natural selection, had evolved to be as unassuming as possible. But to my Uncle, it might as well have been a Ferrari.

  One day when I was staying at his place, it started snowing something fierce, and not the good kind, either. No, this was slush snow, formed at 35 degrees, too damp and goopy to make snowmen with but just solid enough to be slippery.

  And when he saw that slush raining down, my Uncle jumped right out of the sofa and told me to get my coat. We were going on a trip.

  My Uncle, the same man who always wore a sweater the moment the weather dropped below 75 degrees, said we were going on a trip. And he was smiling.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Trip, in this case, was a twenty minute drive to the parking lot of the local park, now totally empty of cars. A drive that would have taken two minutes if not for the slush clogging the roads like too much cholesterol. The moment we arrived, my Uncle shooed me out of the car, assuring me this wouldn't take too long.

  I expected to spend the next half hour sheltering under a snow laden jungle gym. Instead, my seat was glued to a park bench, hypnotized by that squat grey beetle as it moved across the slush.

  I'm still not sure how to describe it. I'd compare it to a race car doing donuts, but there's a rugged, acrid, aggression to that I just didn't see in the beetle. No, these movements, were graceful, poised, and deliberate as a ballet dancer's. I have never seen a car move like that, and I probably never will again.

  On the way back, he apologized for making me sit out there, telling me how he didn't get many chances to 'car skate', as he called it, anymore. But for being a good sport, he stopped by Pepperoni's and ordered a barbecue bacon ranch pizza, my favorite.

  He still made me eat peas with it, though.