And Speaking of Driving...

My parents have always had two cars. My dad's, which was really more like his favorite pet--well-fed and well-groomed, and my mom's, the rolling garbage scow (as a musician, she always had at least a dozen music books, a piano, a violin and perhaps a tuba or two cluttering up the back.).

When we all learned to drive, there was not even a question. It was with my mom's car. There was no way my dad was going to risk a ding, dent or scrape on his beloved car. He and he alone drove it.

Those evenings my dad fell asleep on the couch, you could march a band (courtesy of my mom's back seat) through the room and he wouldn't even twitch, but a whispered, "Dad's car is last in the driveway and needs to be moved." would have him snapping up and launching himself like a guided missile out the front door before you even finished the sentence.

Not that he didn't have good reason for this. My mom's car had its fair share of "mishaps". A bump or two in the parking lot didn't faze my mom a bit. She had learned to drive in New York City, where it is definitely considered a contact sport. She also has always been a fast driver.

Actually, they both are. It was a bit like growing up in the Andretti household. If you didn't hit sixty mph by the end of the block, you weren't really trying, and only little old ladies went under eighty or ninety on the highway. Pretty much everyone knew you never wanted either of them to say, "I'll drive" or, worse yet, "Follow me" unless you had your will written and made your peace with God.

One morning on the way to school, my mom stopped to pick up a boy who was hitching a ride (he was a year ahead of me, and we lived in a relatively small town, so...). He had barely closed the door when he was flung back against the seat as she hit warp speed. By the time we arrived, all of four miles later, he was pale and shaking and bolted from the car as though the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels.

I later overheard him telling his friends in a panic-stricken voice about the "crazy driver" he had gotten a ride with, and advising them all not to get in that car. Ever.

My mom merely shrugged off the whole incident with a laugh, while my dad just rolled his eyes and surreptitiously nudged his car keys under a pile of papers.

Therefore, it was no surprise to any of us (except my mom) when, after driving them to Florida in his one month old car, he insisted on being the official "chauffeur".

So far, he has been to the grocery store, the mall, the outlet mall, bookstore, craft store, church, drugstore and housewares store. Or at least the parking lots of all these places.

Basically, he would rather sit, baking in the hot Florida sun for hours, re-reading the newspaper, than allow my mom to literally even drive across the street to the CVS with his car. A fact which ticks her off to no end.

It was on one of their excursions though that the unimaginable happened. While stopping for gas, my dad went inside to pay, and some guy, trying to get closer to the pump, backed into his car and gave it its first ding.

My dad will stop crying any day now. But my mom is still not allowed to drive the car.