Y2K Car

When I was little, riding in the car was pretty simple. You fought constantly (if you were lucky enough to have obnoxious siblings,) and you listened to whatever radio station your parents liked. Sometimes there was gum. That was it. These days, things are a lot more complicated.

Not the fighting part, but everything else.

Now we have those astronaut-variety restraint systems. Which were actually a stroke of genius, and a huge improvement over the time when kids lounged on the rear window shelf or pole-vaulted over seats. These inventions have (thankfully) put the "car" in "incarceration."

We also have "car" in the cup holders (Matchbox.) And "car" stuck between the cushions. And occasionally "car" pole-vaulting over the seats. But it's better than bodies.

The current entertainment situation in cars reflects our techno-progress. Now we get to argue not just about the radio station, but who gets the video game, and which tape selection seems most appropriate: audio AND video. I haven't actually made the leap to light-speed of a VCR in the family vehicle, but the pressure is getting intense.  I'm sorry, but it seems evil to me. Kids are fed information CONSTANTLY these days. You'd think they could suffer for 10 minutes on the way to school. Or am I just getting old?

It just seems to me that when the fist fighting gives way to catatonia, we've lost touch with our roots. The culture of automobiles will be completely unrecognizable. Except the fanny burn-marks from vinyl, of course.

Cars now have convenient electric windows with child-foiling safety override controls. No more hanging out the window to swallow air for the belching contests. No more threaded golf-tees masquerading as door locks. Or skinned knuckles from vigorous window rolling. Heck, you can even get a key chain bangle that'll open the door for you. It's not just the kids who are going catatonic.

It doesn't help this automobile culture shock that I have bizarre children. At least I flatter myself that they're bizarre. It could actually be much worse.

I hear it's fairly normal for a kindergartner to become a wicked back-seat driver. Well, just leave it to my son to take a bad idea to its logical conclusion. He now hollers at cars for "butting" in line. He also kibitzes about turn-signal etiquette, and verbally abuses stoplights. Like he has anyplace he needs to be! He's SIX, for crying out loud.

He notices WAY too much. Recently I was forced to move his booster seat to behind the driver seat - in a desperate attempt to make it harder for him to see the speedometer. Because he hasn't yet developed the spatial ability to distinguish which speed limit signs pertain to the road we're actually ON, and which are on side-streets. He's about ready to turn me in for (his words:) "flagrant disrespect for the law," and I swear I've never driven over 30 mph in my life.

But back seat driving isn't his only annoying car habit. He also keeps a running count of school buses that he's seen. Since he learned to count. Three years ago. I'm not kidding. We'll be driving down the road, and he'll yell "Two Hundred and Sixty-Two!" I don't know how he keeps track.

He also counts blimps, and yellow cars. I don't know why.

For someone so focused on his environment, you'd think he'd miss the conversational captivity inherent in auto travel. But no such luck. The car is his all-time favorite place to ask impertinent questions. My husband has never been a victim of this kind of ambush, sad to say. I'd give money to see how he'd react to some of the question *I get. Like: "Mom, how did Dad plant that baby seed?"

Right out of the blue, too. When I'm most apt to choke on saliva and/or drive into a ditch. ("Honest, Officer, he asked me a sex question, and I think I fainted...")

I guess it was a lot simpler when *I was in the back seat asking those kinds of questions.