Shame on you, inbound commuters on the west side of Houston

What would you do if you saw this on the way in to work?

Well, apparently all of the thousands of inbound commuters on the west side of Houston either (1) cannot read, (2) don't have working horns, or (3) are stick-in-the-mud fuddy-duddies. We turned the radio down and had the windows cracked so we would be sure not to miss any birthday honks. But we got nothin'. Nada.

"Why aren't they honking for me, daddy?"

After I picked my heart up off the floorboards, I replied with an attempt to lighten the moment.

"Well, buddy, maybe they don't know how to read. Maybe they didn't practice their sight word books like you do!"

"Maybe they're old and don't know how to read," Braden reasoned with his newly acquired five-year old logic.

After a few more blocks of honk-free silence, he chimed in with his assessment of the situation.

"I think this was a bad idea."

That was the last straw. I was determined to solicit some honks one way or another. For a second, I thought about fashioning some sort of "Please honk!" sign that I could flash out my driver's side window. Instead, I decided to "lead by example" and honk myself, thus showing my fellow commuters that it is OK to honk for no good reason other than to bring joy to a 5 year old.

HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK!

Immediately, the driver of a 99-cent store 18-wheeler in the lane next to us followed my lead.

HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK!

I quickly turned around to see Braden's face light up with a big ol' grin. ("Whew!" I thought.)

"Hey buddy! Did you hear that? Mack honked for you!"

Right about then, we hopped on the HOV lane in order to make it to school on time. There aren't many opportunities for other vehicles to read your rear window on the HOV lane, so it was quiet from that point on. But, as only a father would foolishly do, I promised him that the day wasn't over yet and that people may honk tonight on the way to soccer practice.

So, if you're on the west side of town tonight and you see the car above, for the love of God -- HONK!