There is really nothing to compare to buying a car. All those car dealerships on every street corners, the salespeople hollering like prostitutes offering two-for-one's, the rush to get you to buy no matter what. It is horrible, and a lot of the time people will buy a car just to stop the madness.
My mother-in-law is already a little crazy. She is so overanxious that she is paralyzed whenever she has to make a decision. Since she is alone now, she is supposed to be able to take care of herself and make her own decisions. So far, the only big decisions she has made seem to involve calling or texting her son so he can make the decision for her, whatever that decision might be. (Either she doesn't realize that she is driving her son crazy, or she realizes it and just doesn't care how disruptive she is; it's all about her.)
Larry wants to be a good son, so when her car finally gave up the ghost, he tried to help her. He asked her what kind of car she wanted, and where she wanted to look. These questions sent her into paroxyms of indecisiveness. She wanted what she had. They don't make those cars anymore. She wanted Larry to decide, and Larry was just as determined not to decide anything. He told her about several websites where Ruth could look at a variety of cars and prices while she was at home; she wasn't comfortable with that, etc.
Finally she was ready to go to the lot and choose. Larry went with her, and after awhile, I started getting these texts. These texts let me know how things were going.
"I am in the backseat while she is test driving," read the first one.
"Valium would be nice," read the next one.
And so it went, my husband freaking out over his mother's mad driving skills. I felt a little bad for him, having been driving with my own mother and her tendency to slam on the brakes 300 feet from the intersections. I hoped his mother would be able to make a decision soon.
"I hope you have some idea of how nerve wracking this is," read the last one.
It sucks to be old, I am sure. It must doubly suck to be old and crazy. Finally, Ruth selected a car--and immediately found something wrong with it.
It's always something.
Showing posts with label cars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cars. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Monday, November 19, 2012
The Driving Curse
When I drive, idiots seem to come out of the woodwork, from the lady yakking on her cell phone while she drifts into my lane to the car full of people with the rear axel hitting the road. I certainly cannot let them hit my vehicle, and I can't psychically pull them out of their vehicle and slap them silly(which gets my vote for the best possible superpower to have). My one recourse in these cases is to curse at them, and that is what I do. I curse long and usually quite loudly...unless Zane is in the car.
When my child was born, and we brought him home from the hospital, my husband and I made a concerted effort not to curse anymore, at least not in front of the boy. I have had nightmares about my son yelling profanity in the middle of Mass, confirming what my great aunts the nuns all said about me years ago. I was determined that those nightmares not come true. I've been pretty successful over the last five years, I'd like to think. With the exception of a few slip ups with the s*** word, I've been able to keep Zane from acquiring new words that would get him kicked out of Catholic school. Until this weekend.
Zane and I were heading to his last soccer game when a truck with a trailer changed lanes in front of me. Or rather the truck changed lanes, then the trailer decided to stick with the truck. It was a chancy thing, and I don't think that the trailer really wanted to go with the truck. I was in the lane where the truck arrived; he not only cut me off, but his trailer almost tipped over onto our car, and I had to slam on my brakes. My heart was racing because I panicked and I was furious at the driver AND his trailer. I checked on Zane in the mirror to make sure he was okay, but otherwise I continued driving.
"Mama, what's a f***er?" came a voice from the backseat.
My heart dropped into my stomach. My brain did a quick rewind, and yes, I DID say that word, and yes, my child DID notice. That's what children do. They pay attention to exactly what you want them to skip over. Their brains are little tape recorders, and my son has an uncanny auditory memory, which is why I didn't want him to hear Larry and I cursing in the first place.
I almost said another curse word, this time to myself, but it was time to accept the consequences, and I could not erase the last minute. I sucked it up and did the adult thing. I apologized to Zane for saying that word in front of him. I told him that I was very scared about that truck, I wasn't thinking, and I said something that I should not have said. I emphasized that the word I used was not a nice word, and that it was not a word I ever wanted to hear him say, because it was a very, very bad word. I think that I got through to him. He hasn't mentioned it since.
Maybe I dodged that bullet for now. Or maybe I will be getting a phone call from the school this week or the next. I don't remember reading anything about the penalty for calling your teacher a bad word, but I am sure that it involves something horrible.
How about you? Anyone else ever cuss in front of a child? How did you handle it?
When my child was born, and we brought him home from the hospital, my husband and I made a concerted effort not to curse anymore, at least not in front of the boy. I have had nightmares about my son yelling profanity in the middle of Mass, confirming what my great aunts the nuns all said about me years ago. I was determined that those nightmares not come true. I've been pretty successful over the last five years, I'd like to think. With the exception of a few slip ups with the s*** word, I've been able to keep Zane from acquiring new words that would get him kicked out of Catholic school. Until this weekend.
Zane and I were heading to his last soccer game when a truck with a trailer changed lanes in front of me. Or rather the truck changed lanes, then the trailer decided to stick with the truck. It was a chancy thing, and I don't think that the trailer really wanted to go with the truck. I was in the lane where the truck arrived; he not only cut me off, but his trailer almost tipped over onto our car, and I had to slam on my brakes. My heart was racing because I panicked and I was furious at the driver AND his trailer. I checked on Zane in the mirror to make sure he was okay, but otherwise I continued driving.
"Mama, what's a f***er?" came a voice from the backseat.
My heart dropped into my stomach. My brain did a quick rewind, and yes, I DID say that word, and yes, my child DID notice. That's what children do. They pay attention to exactly what you want them to skip over. Their brains are little tape recorders, and my son has an uncanny auditory memory, which is why I didn't want him to hear Larry and I cursing in the first place.
I almost said another curse word, this time to myself, but it was time to accept the consequences, and I could not erase the last minute. I sucked it up and did the adult thing. I apologized to Zane for saying that word in front of him. I told him that I was very scared about that truck, I wasn't thinking, and I said something that I should not have said. I emphasized that the word I used was not a nice word, and that it was not a word I ever wanted to hear him say, because it was a very, very bad word. I think that I got through to him. He hasn't mentioned it since.
Maybe I dodged that bullet for now. Or maybe I will be getting a phone call from the school this week or the next. I don't remember reading anything about the penalty for calling your teacher a bad word, but I am sure that it involves something horrible.
How about you? Anyone else ever cuss in front of a child? How did you handle it?
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