Tell Your Daddy and Your Mama Too, You Got Something Better to Do

Here is a picture of a snow covered tree in front of a parking ramp.

Okay, kids. FMDM called me to chat and I wasn't paying attention to the time and now it is ridiculously late, so I'm stealing from the old blog. This was something from December of 2005: I swear, one of these days I'll start writing real posts again. Who knows? Maybe I'll even start tomorrow. But for right now, I'm serving up this:


On Friday night, I was driving down the Coralville Strip on the way to pick up Coadster from an ice skating party at the mall. Stinky and her friend were sitting in the backseat and I was looking like a lame ass taxi driver alone in the front seat. Of Course, I drive a total mom car - I have that pine green Subaru station wagon, the same color and kind that everyone else bought in 1999. It's a wonderfully reliable car and I even have a, "share the road with bicycles" bumper sticker so I'm unmistakably a big, old mom.

That's why I was surprised when a car full of young men (and I use that term loosely) pulled up next to me at the light. At first I wasn't sure if they were high school kids or frat boys, but then they didn't have a very nice car or an Illinois license plate with a dealership sticker from the Northshore suburbs of Chicago, so I figured they were high school kids. They started honking and waving and yelling to get my attention. I looked over and they made that gesture for me to roll down my window. Which I didn't do. I tried to ignore them and Stinky and her friend giggled and made fun of them while they then attempted to race me down the strip. When I didn't play along, they slowed down to my speed and kept yelling and honking. What the hell? I'm old, I'm not playing - why bother? I could see them doing that to a car driven by hot young college girls, but I was even wearing the same Carhartt sweatshirt that I always wear so I'm sure I looked like the worst kind of farm wife.

That went on for way too long and they got so carried away at one point that they nearly ran us off the road. I think coming close to hitting us, sobered them up and they finally let it go and drove off.

That wasn't the first time this year I had some younger kids flipping me shit. This summer I was running down Rochester and two boys, probably around 10 years old, had their super soakers out. You could tell they thought about it for a bit, but then they both aimed and fired right at me. I think I said, "Knock it off you little shits." But they fired one more time before they ran off. I couldn't believe how ballsy they were. What's with kids today? Is no one taught any respect any more? Is it more fallout from too much MTV and video games? Or were we like that with adults when I was younger and I just don't remember it?

If I go all the way back to Arizona and try to be honest with myself, I can think of a time or two when we treated adults badly. Arizona is a state filled with fringe movements. I kind of like that large populations of Mormons and bikers can live peacefully in the same state. But then you have to imagine what it would be like if they got into a war with each other...Sure, the bikers would win at first, they have all the machinery, but then the Mormons who got away could retreat to their bunkers with all their hoarded food and make like the righteous progenitors that they are to replenish their armies. I would probably put my money on the Mormons.

...What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, respect. When we were kids we used to make fun of the bikers who lived at the end of our street. A big group of us would walk back and forth in front of their house and yell/sing the words to, "Motorcycle Mama". Mostly we would sing, "...Motorcycle Mama, the queen of the highway, and we'll see the world through my Harley.." over and over again until the dad came out of the house and yelled at us to get the hell out and then we'd run away screaming and wait a while before we got the guts to start it up again.

The other time I remember being mean to a grown-up was in second grade. There was a kid at our school who's mom volunteered to help in our class. She still had one of those really high bouffants and we couldn't get over it. We called her the Eiffel Tower and any time she walked by us we would all act as if the hair tower on top of her head was going to come crashing down on us. All the kids would push each other out of her way. The principal came to our class to talk to us about hurting her feelings and I think that was the first sensitvity training I ever had.

I guess the big problem with all of this is that my disrespect was really funny and the shit those boys did, was just stupid - ok, shooting a mom with the big super soakers would have been really funny if I saw it done to someone else. I think it's just more of my take on things: When I do something, it's really cute and endearing but it's kind of annoying when someone else does it. Hmmmm.