You're Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't

When I was a kid my dad would load us up in the car and take a "drive" as he liked to call it. Usually it would entail us driving around on dirt roads just looking at other houses while my brother and I sat in the back seat staring out the window wondering when it would end. If my dad was feeling particularly funny that day he'd honk the horn and wave out the window when he saw someone working in their yard, getting their mail, or waiting to pull out of their driveway. Without fail my brother or I would ask him who that was and we were almost always met with the standard "beats the hell out of me" response. Both my brother and I would then sink down in our seats in utter embarrassment.

As a teenager my best friend Kris & I would drive around for hours on end listening to music and talking about nothing and everything. We were on one of our drives when I came out to her. On another late night drive she confided to me that she was in love with the delivery man at the Starbucks she worked at.

Now as an adult I don't love long "drives" anymore. A and I do the Midwest Tour every Christmas to spend time with my mom and his mom because it's nearly impossible to fly to my mom, then to his mom, and finally back home due to schedules and availability. This year we threw out the idea of doing our Midwest Tour for Thanksgiving as well as Christmas and we both came to the quick conclusion that such a drive twice in nearly a month is out of the question. It's just too much time in the car.

Perhaps the ease of childhood allows a child to ride around in the back of a car for hours but the stress of adulthood makes one nauseated at the mere thought of it.