Chapter Thirty-Four
-- August, 2002
Sniff ‘n the Tears – “Driver’s Seat”
The second day of the reunion started bright and early. I wanted to sleep in, but Mom decided that she was going to teach me how to drive. We found an empty parking lot – in Florida there are many of them – and she got out of the driver’s side to let me slide over. She took the passenger seat and immediately insisted on seatbelts. I was way ahead of her though.
As the tutorial progressed, she spent a lot of time explaining things I already knew. Like coming to a complete stop at a stop sign or using a blinker every time I turned. Finally, I just yelled, “Mom! I’ve played video games before - I know how to drive!”
“God help me,” she said, crossing herself.
Every time, I remotely pressed on the accelerator, Janet would shriek at the top of her lungs and grab at the handle above the window that was normally used for dry cleaning. I asked her to calm down and while she saw the logic in that, five seconds later there she’d be shouting again for me to stop.
“This is too much pressure!” I roared.
When I swerved to avoid a possum, she’d finally had enough.
“I’m not ready for this!” she screamed.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Then you drive! I guess I’ll learn some other way!” I got out of the car and angrily switched places with her. I was so pissed. I had gotten to drive for a grand total of two minutes. Clearly, she wasn’t ready for me to grow up yet.
Mom drove us back to the Embargo Motor Lodge in time to participate in the dozen or so field day activities that had been planned. I tried to remain positive, but Mom’s car meltdown had put a damper on things. From the very beginning, I was miserable.
The tug-of-war left splinters in my hand and I didn’t have the upper body for the wheelbarrow race. The egg toss was just plain gross, and no one told me I should have been wearing a bathing suit for the “fill the bucket with water” challenge.
All of this would have been fine if the Vanowens didn’t take the games so seriously. Red Rover turned violent when a couple people got clotheslined and Capture the Flag was a stalemate until my cousins started cheating. The activities got progressively lamer, so when everyone set out for the scavenger hunt, I decided to leave. I headed over to the pool area where I found Nannie sunbathing in a lawn chair next to her oxygen tank.
“Hey Nan,” I said. “You havin’ a good time?”
“Oh, a wonderful time,” she answered, smiling into the sun.
“Why didn’t you join in for Red Rover?”
“I’m eighty.”
“That’s a really good point.”
“And you? Why aren’t you with the others?”
“Well, they said I was too good. So, I thought I’d give other people a chance to shine.”
“That’s very considerate of you. But how about a serious answer?”
“I don’t know. I might have enjoyed it if it wasn’t for Mom.”
“Why? What’d she do?”
“Eh, she freaked out on me while I was trying to drive.”
Sandra nodded. “You’re going to have to forgive her for that. She got into a terrible accident when she was younger.”
“Yeah, she told me. But she wouldn’t say what happened. You wanna tell me about it?”
“Normally when I tell you kids a story your eyes glass over and you start looking at your phones a lot.”
“I won’t, I promise. Scout’s honor.”