Today I am posting a story I wrote for the Ann Arbor new several years ago. A conversation with my son the other day reminded me of this story. Enjoy.
Driving
while under the influence of children
As
I browsed through a collection of books at Barnes & Noble, one particular
book caught my eye. The book was titled, Driving while under the influence of
children, by Rick Kirkman & Jerry Scott. The book was compiled of comic
strips from the Baby Blues series.
One of the chapter titles that jumped
out at me was, I shouldn’t have to scream
more than once. This reminded me of a car trip when my son was 10 years
old. After picking the boys up from
school I stopped by my favorite take-out place to pick up an order. I ran inside
to get my order and when I returned to the car my son was trapped in his
seatbelt. I was driving under the influence of children.
After saying more than once, “fasten
your seat belt,” it finally clicked…literally. This is one of those things I
don’t feel needs to be said more than one time. Well, he went to the extreme
and some how became tangled in the seatbelt. At least I knew he was secure so I
began driving toward home.
My son continued to twist and turn, he
shifted his legs, and then he tucked his head underneath the shoulder strap.
Still stuck. While stopped at a red light, I glanced in the back seat and saw a
tortured look on my sons face.
There was a police station just around
the corner from where we were. I parked the car and trotted to the door. Once
inside the municipal building, I rang the bell on the ledge outside of the
bullet proof window. There was no answer.
I went back to the car to tug on the
seatbelt some more. It would not budge. My son began taking off layers of his
clothing to see if he could slip out of the belt. I refused to cut the seat
belt. There had to be some magical way to free him, but I was not coming up
with a solution.
By this time my son was sitting in his
underwear, I drove to the fire station down the road from my house. They are
used to rescuing people, I was sure they could free my child from the bonds of
the seat belt. My son slipped back into his pants to save a little bit of his
pride.
Inside the entrance of the fire station
I rang the bell and a perplexed looking fireman asked, “Can I help you?”
“I hope so,” I said explaining my
situation. Two firemen came out to my car and assessed the situation.
“How did you get in there like that
buddy?” one of them asked.
My son just hunched his shoulders and
looked liked the cat who swallowed the canary. One fireman lifted my son as the
other one attempted to detangle the seat belt. It wasn’t working.
“Looks
like we’re gonna have to cut the seat belt,” one of the men said. He took out a
pocket knife and my son was free in no time.
Driving while under the influence of
children can be costly.
As the MasterCard commercial would say –
The cost of gas for running from place
to place…$3.49/gallon
The cost of replacing the cut seat
belt….$280.
Seeing the sigh of relief on my sons
face….priceless.
What has been your experience while driving
under the influence of children?
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