Last week, I drove my parents (and younger son) to Massachusetts to visit my oldest son. It was an act of love (and lunacy) on my part because while my father is a pretty passive passenger, my mother is not.
Grace Dewey is a horrible backseat driver — at least when I’m behind the wheel. (I love you, Mom, but you know it’s true.)
She gasps dramatically, sighs heavily, critiques loudly, and criticizes often. According to her, I drive too fast and talk too much (meaning, I’m not focused on the road). Also, my music is too loud and the air conditioner is too cold. Did I mention I drive too fast?
With almost 37 years of driving under my belt, I know what to expect with her, but it still rattles me. So to keep the peace, I did something shocking … I let my nearly-83-year-old mother drive the first leg of the trip.
She was ecstatic.
I was not.
A little background for those who don’t know my mother IRL … She prefers to drive. She also believes she’s a good driver, citing her fellow octogenarian friends as evidence of this, since they always ask her to drive.
But at almost 83, her hearing isn’t great and her reflexes aren’t what they used to be. On the highway, she’s your typical older driver — overly (and dangerously) cautious and slow. On the streets, however, she’s more like Mr. Magoo crossed with Mario Andretti — fast and oblivious.
For this trip, I agreed to let her drive from her home to the first rest stop. It should have been an hour of smooth sailing, but it wasn’t.
First, there was a parking lot mishap that almost resulted in me being crushed by the car. Then, a few near misses with other cars. Then, there was a wrong turn that had us driving in circles around the Bronx. (Luckily, my dad is a walking Rand McNally road atlas and knows his way around the streets.)
Through it all, I held my tongue. Not because I’m a good daughter. Because the extreme heat made my mouth too dry to talk. (She keeps the car as hot as her home!) Besides, I wouldn’t have been heard over the Golden Oldies playing on the radio anyway.
Despite my mother’s refusal to use Waze or GoogleMaps, we made it to the first rest stop in one piece, and switched places. With me behind the wheel, things were better.
Sort of.
As I said, Grace Dewey isn’t a good passenger. For the remaining four hours, she complained when I switched lanes and scolded me when I accelerated. The best 30-minutes of the ride were when she and my father took their afternoon naps in the backseat … The silence was blissful.
After a total of five and a half hours, we finally made it … Late, thanks to slower speed, multiple bathroom stops, and our detour through the Bronx.
Needless to say, this wasn’t an enjoyable road trip by any means. But seeing my parents so happy with their grandsons made it all worthwhile.
That ride home, though? A story for another time, but I think you can guess how it went.
—LJDT
PS: If you think this post was mean, you should know I wanted to call it, “I Survived Driving Miss Daisy” as a nod to the I Survived children’s book series my boys used to read when they were younger. But for the sake of a shorter URL — and my mom’s feelings — I didn’t. See? I’m not such a bad daughter after all😉
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