Auto Apologies

A woman recently came up with an idea that may revolutionize automobile travel. She decided to signal her apologies every time she did something wrong, by blowing kisses to other drivers on the road.

Actually, there are may times in a woman’s driving life when a signal of apology would come in handy—such as when the baby empties your purse out the window in the car order line at the supermarket, causing a traffic tie-up that stretches two honking blocks to the rear.

Not that the baby is the only problem a driving mother has to cope with. After all, you can always give him an ice cream cone in order to get a few minute’s peace and quiet. This may not seem worth it when you get home and realize you have to spend the rest of the day scraping ice cream off the car seats, doors, windows and ceiling, but that is neither here nor there. We all have difficult choices to make.

The real trouble comes when your other three kids refuse to sit beside him because he smears ice cream into their hair. It’s then that you realize that no matter how you try to work out the permutations and combinations of the equation, the only way you are going to be able to transport all four children anywhere at once, is to strap the baby to the roof of the car.

The worst torture for a driver with a carload of kids is the noise. Actually, I don’t really mind driving with the radio on full blast. It helps drown out the constant bickering going on in the back seat. What drives me mad is when two of the kids start giving me important messages from their teachers under the mistaken belief that because I have two ears, I can listen to both of them at the same time.

There are many things you can do to keep your children happily occupied while traveling. Well maybe not happy, or even occupied, but at least distracted enough not to spit on the windows and wipe them clean with their underwear.

You could have the kids count out-of-town license plates or brown cows. Personally, I’ve always liked the game where you spot objects beginning with successive letters of the alphabet. Since there are rarely any xylophones lying around on the highway, I can get several minutes’ peace pretending to watch out for something beginning with the letter ‘X’.

When my husband does the driving, the game we play most often with our children is a lively version of musical chairs. He and I start out in the front with the four kids in the back until they start fighting, whereupon I bring the troublemaker into the front with us. I kept doing this until all six of us are squeezed into the front seat, which is illegal, not to mention uncomfortable, especially when the baby throws up. When they start fighting again, I reverse the process, until everybody’s in the back seat except my husband, who keeps swearing he’ll never take the kids out in the car again until they get married or leave home, whichever comes first.

It’s no wonder I blunder along, making illegal left turns every time someone drips popsicle juice down the back of my neck. Therefore, if you see an hysterical woman with a car full of redheaded kids blowing kisses at you someday soon, don’t be alarmed. It’ll be me, apologizing on behalf of driving mothers all over the world.