3 Diary of a Madcap Mama or Driving Under the Influence of Laughter!

Fast forward to my sixteenth year: I could finally drive! Without The Shirley by my side – to step on the accelerator thinking it was the brake – I did pretty darn good! No teenage wrecks to report, no speeding over speed bumps, no driving over curbs. Okay, there may have been the occasional curb….even now a curb or two will put its chunky foot under my tire and boom, bounce we go! But other than that, driving was a gas!

My dad bought The Shirley a new car and gave me the Nova! Whoo-hoo! I had my own wheels and a license to drive them.

This, however, did not stop The Shirley! Just because I could now drive, didn’t mean I was free to extricate myself from my mom’s healthy need to create laughter out of potentially embarrassing driving situations.

I was a careful driver. This to my mother, meant slow. So, if The Shirley was in a hurry to get somewhere….she insisted on doing the driving! EEK! I’m sure that you can appreciate my sixteen year old dilemma!

Enter boyfriend…we’ll call him Mr. Cool Tool (because at the time I thought he was cool, he used tools to work on cars and, in time, he revealed himself to be a total tool!). Mr. Cool Tool worked at the gas station at the corner. Mr. Cool Tool always waved at me and smiled when I drove by on my way somewhere. Mr. Cool Tool was always on the look out for me to drive by. And yes, sometimes that meant with my mother….at the WHEEL!

One day we were headed towards the mall. The Shirley was in a hurry and insisted on driving. I begged, I pleaded, I stated that we were far safer (from embarrassing situations) with me behind the wheel than her! She tossed her frosted hair, smiled that pretty Shirley smile and vetoed me with the confidence of a mom high on mall shopping.

We were off! We careened up the main boulevard headed for the freeway. The Shirley loved driving on the freeway. No stop signs, no red lights, no speed bumps, nothing but uninterrupted pavement filled with fast moving obstacles (cars!) to zigzag around! What’s not to love? My eight year old sister – The Lydia – was belted and bolted down into the back seat. I was hunkered down – white knuckles clenched down upon the edge of the seat, eyes scanning the road ahead for speed bumps, slow moving cars and people who might recognize me – in the front passenger seat. As we approach the corner where Mr. Cool Tool works, The Shirley starts to dig through her purse with gusto!

“Mother,” I squealed, “What are you doing? Watch the road!” A bead of sweat collected on my furrowed forehead.

The Shirley laughed and said, “I think I forgot my checkbook! I can’t shop without my checkbook.” She continued digging thoroughly through her purse and then said, “Yep, I forgot it. Good thing we’re not too far from home yet.”

With that, The Shirley quickly guided the new, silver Chrysler from the right lane to the left lane…and then proceeded to execute – and by execute, I mean butcher – a left u-turn.

I cringed and tried to press my body firmly, safely, back against the seat as the car began to curl off to the left. I held my breath and looked towards the gas station to see if Mr. Cool Tool was out front. He WAS! Blast!

Mr. Cool Tool looked back at me, smiled and then waved at me. As I weakly lifted my right hand to wave back, pretending that all was well, The Shirley, now fully engaged in making that left u-turn, hooked not one, but TWO (!), left tires over the center median!!! The car took on a lopsided stance reminiscent of the Nova’s previous predicament; only this time we were in MOTION!

June Cleaver never got her tires hooked up on a median!

The Shirley threw her head back and laughed wildly! My sister – The Lydia – sat in the backseat alternately mortified and giggling. My head bobbled like a wobbly dashboard Jesus as I muttered a secret prayer for invisibility! My prayer went unanswered as I looked up and saw that Mr. Cool Tool was bent over in what looked like a seizure. I’m sure it wasn’t a seizure. I’m sure it was laughter….that kind of laughter where you can’t catch your breath and drool lolls out from the sides of your mouth. The kind of laughter where milk will spew out of your nose and your stomach clenches down so tightly that it is sore the next day…the kind of bent over seizure-like laughter that makes everyone else believe that you have lost your simple mind.

Holy magnificent madness, Batman!

“Mother,” I screamed, reeling from the topsy-turvy condition of the Chrysler, “you are up on the curb!”

For some unholy reason, the Chrysler continued around the curb of the median like a train on a rail headed for teenage hell.

The Shirley let go another unbridled laugh and said, “well, we’re already up here, might as well continue!” And she did too…she actually completed the u-turn with both left tires firmly hooked up over the curving curb of the median, until….

SMACK! The car slammed back down onto the pavement with a force that I’m sure shocked the shocks! We rocked, we rolled, we bounced to and fro as The Shirley laughed hysterically while pulling the car back into submission. I hunkered down in my seat and uttered silent curses upon the checkbook for not being in The Shirley’s purse, thereby causing this catastrophe.

I reveled in the desperate hope that there was a slight chance that Mr. Cool Tool would think it was not me, not us, not my mother performing this sloppy, ineffective, half-bidden effort for a u-turn! It was the ‘70s after all and there were lots of silver Chryslers.

Of course Mr. Cool Tool knew it was us. Leave it to say, we didn’t date for long....

(To be gloriously continued.....)


© July/2008 by C. D. Duffin
All Rights Reserved – Used by Permission
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