In the dream, this was much richer
OK, not my best. Started as a dream, but kind of got away from me.
Dad’s Still Driving
My father has an ancient four-door Ford LTD the color of baby poop – as if that baby has had nothing to eat but bananas. We still refer to is as the "Poopmobile," but never to his face.
Since I’m the last sibling to live at home, if falls to me to accompany my father on his many and varied errands, my mother having refused these rides now for a respectable six years (she insists on driving to church on Sundays in her patriot-blue Chrysler PT Cruiser that she bought with her own Social Security checks).
Driving makes my father happy.
It makes the rest of us, well, nervous.
Dad turns into our circular driveway and instead of braking, be guns the big V8, catches the wet grass and goes into a spin.
I feel like one of those crash-test dummies, the ones you see in films during drivers’ education to let you experience a crash in real time. Bits of detritus from inside the car gain weightlessness and begin to float. I’m struck by one of dad’s crappy Antonio y Cleopatra cigars that has sprung itself from the box he keeps in the backseat.
My stomach is in my throat as I watch dad wrestle with the wheel of the big Ford.
Dad lays off the gas and the rear wheels find purchase and we end up half-in/half out of hydrangea bushes. Mother’s ceramic Saint Francis of Assisi statute has been spun in the crash – unbroken - and it looks now if he’s giving a very private and personal blessing to mom’s Viking Queen heirloom roses.
Dad unclasps his seat belt, flicks me on the shoulder with his extended right arm and laughs.
“Bring in the groceries, will ya?”
And bounds up the porch steps, yelling for my mom.
“Honey, the damn dog got loose again,” he says, tossing his keys into the drawer in the divider. “I just missed him this time.”
We don’t own a dog.
Dad’s Still Driving
My father has an ancient four-door Ford LTD the color of baby poop – as if that baby has had nothing to eat but bananas. We still refer to is as the "Poopmobile," but never to his face.
Since I’m the last sibling to live at home, if falls to me to accompany my father on his many and varied errands, my mother having refused these rides now for a respectable six years (she insists on driving to church on Sundays in her patriot-blue Chrysler PT Cruiser that she bought with her own Social Security checks).
Driving makes my father happy.
It makes the rest of us, well, nervous.
Dad turns into our circular driveway and instead of braking, be guns the big V8, catches the wet grass and goes into a spin.
I feel like one of those crash-test dummies, the ones you see in films during drivers’ education to let you experience a crash in real time. Bits of detritus from inside the car gain weightlessness and begin to float. I’m struck by one of dad’s crappy Antonio y Cleopatra cigars that has sprung itself from the box he keeps in the backseat.
My stomach is in my throat as I watch dad wrestle with the wheel of the big Ford.
Dad lays off the gas and the rear wheels find purchase and we end up half-in/half out of hydrangea bushes. Mother’s ceramic Saint Francis of Assisi statute has been spun in the crash – unbroken - and it looks now if he’s giving a very private and personal blessing to mom’s Viking Queen heirloom roses.
Dad unclasps his seat belt, flicks me on the shoulder with his extended right arm and laughs.
“Bring in the groceries, will ya?”
And bounds up the porch steps, yelling for my mom.
“Honey, the damn dog got loose again,” he says, tossing his keys into the drawer in the divider. “I just missed him this time.”
We don’t own a dog.
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