VICKI SANDOVAL

At 9:40 a.m., Vicki Sandoval stood outside the Rexall with her two kids when a Shriner go-kart clipped her stroller. Not Dallas Yancey this time. An actual Shriner, a dentist named Phil.

The stroller was empty. Phil considered that the key fact. Vicki figured Phil was fixin' to learn something.

She chased him a block and a half in a black T-shirt with the sleeves cut off and caught him. Parade go-karts do eight miles an hour. Vicki, forty-six and madder than a wet hen, does whatever the hell is required. She pulled him out by the fez.

"It was EMPTY!" Phil said.

"It's the PRINCIPLE, you tasseled son of a bitch."

Hard to present a second argument while a woman has hold of your parade hat. Poor Phil. A man can know every tooth in your head and still misjudge your mother.

Reserve Deputy Toad had already been hit by a go-kart that morning. He took his sweet time arriving. Said it was his leg. Sure, honey. That leg had opinions.

Vicki's dead serious in the Polaroid, taken at the Legion Annex against a March 1995 calendar. Closest to right anybody got all damn day. Can't fault a mama for wanting wheels kept off her babies' things.

Phil's fine. His fez isn't. The kids thought it was the best parade ever.