Backseat Drivers

The drive to and from school is becoming increasingly crazy-making—especially the drive to school when I am half awake and more than likely running 15-30 minutes late for work. The monkeys are not only telling me what music to play, now they are telling me which way to drive.

Let’s start with Jiro, the family DJ. Once he came out of his “all Ramones all the time” phase, he became a little dictator. His simple, “Mones!” request morphed into an indecipherable mix of moaning and whining no matter what I played. I found myself furiously flipping through the CD case in an attempt to find a song to his liking while attempting to safely reach our destination. The soundtrack of our morning commute contained more screaming than singing and always ended with him flinging himself into the front to jam the appropriate CD in the slot in anticipation of the next leg of our journey.

Thankfully Satchel doesn’t usually care what is playing, but there are days when the monkeys go head to head over what should be played. In an attempt to create harmony in the backseat, I instituted a “whoever gets in their seat first can pick a CD” rule. It started out quite beautifully. Whoever got in first was presented with the entire children’s CD collection and given the opportunity to choose one. Then whoever was first generously handed the CD collection to his brother to make the second selection, ostensibly for the ride home. This worked for two days maximum. Jiro appointed himself keeper of the CDs and handed me a new one to play about every 2 minutes. Now Jiro is finding it difficult to leave the CD collection in the car and it is a fight to get him to unhand them each and every time we reach our destination.

While Jiro occupies himself with the music, Satchel goes full force on the directions. It isn’t like he has one way that he likes me to go everyday, it changes, so that no matter what I do, it is of course, wrong. Now I am sure you wise parents are saying to yourself Why not drive the same way every day and eliminate this completely? My only answer is that depending on how late we are, there are several ways to shave valuable minutes off of our morning commute. (Anyone who has ever sat at the light at Madison and Cooper for 5 minutes, feel free to back me up here!) Plus there’s always the “Take me the way Daddy takes me” request, several places where a train might stop us in our tracks, and whether or not we make the second longest light (at Central & East Parkway) in Midtown. Oh, and it all depends on whether or not Satchel is trying to eat his breakfast in the car. “Don’t go that way! I won’t have time to eat!” he yells whenever I take a shortcut. (Lest you think I am a total pushover, my stock response is, “When you get a car and a driver’s license you can go whatever way you want.”)

Jiro is of course getting in on this between picking CDs. If I look in the rearview mirror at any intersection I am sure to see one monkey pointing and grunting one direction while the other monkey points and grunts in the other.

Despite this, I have still planned a family road trip for us to St. Louis this weekend. It will be our first ever family vacation based solely on us wanting to have fun. We aren’t visiting anybody or attending any function. It is a family vacation in the purest sense. Our main destination is the St Louis City Museum. I imagine our quest for fun will come in as a close second to the Griswald’s infamous journey to Wally World. I’m already salivating at the opportunity to dine with the monkeys in a new city!

Look out St. Louis! Here we come!