Backing out of my driveway one morning, the 75-foot garden hose, left there the evening before by one of my sons I think, became wrapped around the rear axle of my car. Since I didn't see it at all, I went off to work. The hose apparently began to unroll as I went forward.

I was a couple miles from home, stopped at a crossroads, when a car pulled up and the driver called out to me that a hose was trailing behind my car. When I looked, there it was, and I got out and tried to loosen it to put in the back of the car. It was so tightly wound around the axle that I couldn't budge it. I got back into the car, thinking I would pull across to a place where I could park and fight it some more. As I turned the key in the ignition, a policeman tapped on the window and when I put it down asked could he help.

I went with him to the back of the car, where he smiled at me as he reached down and simply lifted the hose from the axle and handed it to me. When I had put it in the back of the hatchback car and turned to thank him, he was gone. I have never seen his police car - and this was in the country, not a city where I was close to a police station.