Image by tookapic from Pixabay
by Kelli Bowen
There’s a cliched idea of parents in the front of an oversized automobile with Little Susie and Frankie in the backseat squabbling and Dad looking back and threatening “Don’t make me turn this car around.” It’s the threat. Does anyone do it though? “I will stop our planned activity and opt for taking your naughty butt home.” Well today I turned the car around.
On a particular night of the week, Miss E, Miss A, and myself load up in the family truckster and head to town. We get dinner, just the girls, taking turns picking where we go. We go to the chiropractor and all get adjusted. Miss E has a piano lesson while Miss A and I go on a short errand or watch tv in the car and then we all head home.
Not tonight.
We headed to town and it was Miss A’s turn to pick the dinner locale. She wanted Dairy Queen. The family truckster was about out of gas, so the plan was to fill up the car and then go about our business.
It was a rough ride into town. After a few requests for calm, idle threats, and a “do you realize how lucky you are that there’s even a tv in a car”, I finally dropped the big one:
“If you two don’t knock it off, I will turn around and drive this car back home.” I shut off the car and went out to pump gas. For 3 1/2 blissful minutes I just pumped gas, smelled gasoline fumes and didn’t listen to whining.
I got in the car, turned the ignition and shut my door: “Mom! Miss E was gonna play but she just said ‘Blah, Blah, Blah’ when it was her turn.”
“So what? Miss A started it-“. Nuh-uh! Uh huh! So??? You did it first! Nun-uh!
“ENOUGH!” I had hit the limit and any of the surrounding cars would have been able to tell my mood from my flailing arm signals, that’s if they couldn’t hear me.
Then I called an apologized to the chiropractor’s office telling them I understand if they need to charge us but my children are not fit for public. I called the piano teacher and asked if we could do a Zoom class or reschedule. She said Zoom was fine. I called Hubby and told him not to go home because that’s where we were heading and he probably didn’t want to be a part of this crazytrain.
I told the girls we are done. We are going home. Then the attempted bargaining started. Nope. Shut down. That last warning, was in fact THE last warning. They will each go to their rooms when we arrive, where Miss E will set up for her Zoom lesson and Miss A will do something...quietly. I will cook dinner and they can come down when I tell them dinner is ready. There will be no screentime, other than the lesson. There will be no snacks and there will be no whining.
The crazy-mom edge in my voice must have been on point because they didn’t argue. Miss E whine-sobbed and Miss A snickered (she’s going to be a handful) all the way home. The whole 24.8 miles.
We got home and I cooked a dinner that didn’t thrill Miss A. Miss E cleaned her plate. They both bathed. Miss E had a virtual piano lesson. They read books, tried to bargain for tv to no avail, and went to bed.
This night was not the night we had planned or paid for, but there are consequences to actions and choices and tonight the consequence was that I turned the car around. If I’ve gotta, by George, I’ll do it again next week.
Maybe that’s what we all need...someone to turn the car around. When we are all fighting and squabbling, being disrespectful and rude, we need a sleep-deprived, mostly-nuts mom to just pull over, tell us to shape up, and turn the dang car around.
Kelli makes her home in rural Cass County with her husband, two daughters (8 and 5), two dogs, and random poultry. She works for a regional seed company by day and tries to be an alright mom, wife, friend and writer by night.
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