It seems that every person in the world has a “car” story. We all know the trials and tribulations of being a child and having to suffer through the anxiety of going anywhere in the car with a parent... and even worse... brothers and sisters. Let me refresh your memory.
“Kids, it’s time to go to town (the store, the ball park, kalamazoo, you pick a destination — the outcome will be the same)” your mother yells out.
“I call shotgun!!” that of course from your little brother, who God has seen fit to give the reflexes of a cat. Now, it is a given that he has indeed called shotgun first, but you are sure that you can talk your way into that front seat
“You had front seat last time. That’s not fair.” This is said calmly to your brother with a touch of snippiness. But, louder to your mother in a full tilt whine you say “Moooooooom! That’s not faaaaaaaaaiiir. He alwaaaays gets to ride up front. I NEVER get to ride in the front seat. Mom, make him ride in the back.” In retrospect, I have found that children under the age of 18 suffer from either one of two faulty beliefs. They either firmly believe that their parents have no long term memory, or they believe that persistence alone will win in the end. Which is why they consistently use the exact same argument every time a situation arises. Either their parents won’t remember that they have heard this brilliant strategy previously, or if by some remote chance their parents do remember the argument, a fresh perspective will result in success.
And as I sit in the back seat of the car going into town, I am shocked that such a heartfelt, well-worded plea for the front seat was summarily denied. Was it my mother who over-ruled my plea. Oh no, my case did not even reach it to the Walker House Supreme Court. I was overruled in the big sister courtroom. That is the most difficult hurdle of all. From her, my brother and I get “neither one of you is sitting in the front seat. I get car sick if I sit in the back seat, so I am sitting up front.”
Car-sick. I always wanted to get car-sick. I had never seen my sister actually get car-sick. But I always saw my sister sithng up front. To me, car-sick didn’t mean motion sickness it meant first class ticket. Now, with a better understanding of my older sister, I realize that she did not realty get car-sick. Oh no, not my sister. What probably happened is that once when she was two, she ate too much candy and happened to be in the back seat when she threw up. Someone mentioned while they were cleaning up the mess, that “poor baby, must’ve gotten car-sick” From then on she could carve her name on that front seat, because no one else was ever going to use It but her. I know that this Is what happened because my sister, in her great wisdom spent my first 6 years telling me that she was just like that boy In the bubble When she was born she was put in a bubble too, to keep her from getting sick The famous Jodi-birth story In actuality, she was a c-section baby and merely put in an - incubator. Which, to give her some credit, is actually clear. And this is the girl, who until she was 16 got to ride up front; not because of any true illness but because she had the best misconception of the world
So, here I am, with my brother in the back seat of the station wagon Every family with more than two children had a station wagon in the 1970’s, God only knows why. Perhaps because they were like moving playgrounds Personally, I believe it was the space to brake ratio. The break to space ration is the amount of space a misbehaving child can travel from the back of the vehicle to the front of the car when the brakes are applied firmly in a disciplinary manner Station wagons have the highest space to brake ratio Today you will find similar space to brake ratios in utility vehicles. Fortunately child safety laws have seriously limited the needed for space to brake ratios The relationship between the brakes and the space are inversely proportional: meaning that the harder the brakes ware applied the smaller the amount of space between your face and dashboard My mother would apply this relationship as means of enforcing discipline
My mother would not use this disciplinary tool unless we had committed a serious offense, or a number of minor offenses. For example, an all-out brawl in the back seat, would immediately result in the application of the brakes. But it would usually take a good 20 minutes of whining before the breaks would be applied. Now, for most parents of this decade, the brake itself would be punishment enough. It was the attention getting device that enabled the parent to engage in a long meaningful discussion as to why that behavior was inappropriate (i.e. lecture). My mother took the brake discipline method a step further. Because my mother was only 5’2” and sitting in a car that was so huge that she could barely reach over the seat, my mother used the brake method to bring us into reach. If we were fighting in the back seat of the car, my mother would simply slam on the brakes and grab the closest flailing child. That unfortunate child would invariably receive a pinch, or a small hand slap before both of us would receive the lecture. She would then separate my brother and myself, using those wonderful seams in the vinyl, and order us to not touch each other for remainder of the trip. And like the wonderfully imaginative children that my brother and I were, we developed the intricate “no-touch game.”
The rules of the game were as follows:
I .you could touch the air space on the other side of the seat
2.you could not touch the other person’s seat
3.you could not touch the other person
4.if you did touch the other person or the other person’s seat, you would receive a punch from the touched person.
This was a game at which my brother with the cat-reflexes excelled. For the next 20 minutes, my brother would place his finger a mere centimeter from my face. He would usually place it right in front of my eyes, or right at my cheek. All the while he would be singing “no touch game... oh no touch game... don’t touch me... ooh ooh don’t touch me.” I would then try to be as cool as he was by putting my hand over his hand. So that if he moved, he would have to touch my hand. Unfortunately, my coordination and spatial abilities are seriously lacking. And within seconds, I had touched his hand. After about the third punch, I would get tired of the game that I would never win, and I would turn to look out the window. I would assume that since I had stopped playing, my brother had stopped playing as well. So, when he would tell me to look at something on his side of the car, I was always surprised when I ran into his finger as I turned my head to look. Which would then result in another “You touched me! I win, you touched me!” followed by a punch.
My response, in my truly adult manner was “Mom, make Jason stop. He’s hitting me. I didn’t do anything to him, and he just hit me.” And once again, I must call into question the logical reasoning of child. To again invoke the whining power after the awesome brake incident, It was a dangerous move to be sure. On a lucky day it would result in the famous “Do you want me to turn this car around right now?” But today, today was different. As soon as I uttered the words, I say my mother’s arm straining over the back seat. She was groping behind her, looking for something maybe? And then they came. The dreaded words. “Hand me your hair.” This was all new. What do you mean hand me your hair. What are you going to do with my hair. What about, “do you want me to turn the car around.” She was entirely out of protocol. And I didn’t know what to do. So I reached up and grabbed my hair, and then slowly, I approached my mother’s disembodied hand. I placed my hair in my mothers hand, and she yanked. I was so surprised, that my head pulled forward and bumped into the back of her seat. Tears sprang to my eyes. I was not a tender-headed person, and the hair pulling didn’t really hurt that much; it was more the shock, the betrayal and the shame. “Hand me your hair.” I mean that was like telling a man in an electric chair to just pull this switch. What did she mean to make me an active participant in my own punishment. My job was to cry, feel guilty and try to cover my butt when the spanking came. Her job was to say “this hurts me than it will hurt you (which I always found doubtful as she never looked like it hurt, and I never saw her crying or rubbing her hand after a spanking). But not this time, this time, she made me work for my demise. What cruelty was this? In all fairness, my brother received the same punishment. Though he knew what was coming. And as I sat back in my seat, rubbing my scalp, I kept thinking “How stupid am I. She couldn’t have reached my hair. If I hadn’t given it to her, nothing would have happened.” But the smarter part of me knew that any woman who was creative enough to have me hand her my own hair would have come up with something truly bizarre if I ignored the command. She may have handed me her belt and told me to whip myself for all I knew. No, I had definitely chosen the right path. And my final thought after the incident was “I’ll bet if I sat in the front seat, none of this would ever have happened. I wish I got car-sick.”
