I spent a significant amount of the last 20+ years driving people around. Kids to events, practices, meets, etc., and often this driving turned into trips, or very very long driving stints to out-of-town tournaments and cross country meets.
Granted, some of the best conversations I had with my kids, during their teen years in particular, I had in the car on the way to somewhere.
When baby girl got her drivers license, this all changed. Which was good! I worried about her being out there and I worried about other dumb drivers and I worried about her propensity for texting and I worried a lot. But I wasn't driving when I was worrying.
Fast forward 2.5 years. After a relatively quiescent period for schlepping, and much smaller gasoline tabs, to boot, I find myself on ground support duty for my husband and his buddies. Who hike every Saturday. Every Saturday.
Usually I'm on pickup, so when they pop out onto a trailhead after a hard day's hiking I'm there...and all is well. I get to listen to how hard it was, how cold it was, who almost fell, the bear scat they saw, the shortcut they learned from a really old guy who spends all of his spare time on the mountain exploring, and so on.
It's nice. I don't mind. But I do have to schedule my day around it. I consider their probable return as I figure out how to work out, study, run errands, nest, etc. Again, I don't really mind. After all, my husband could be doing something much less healthy, right? Like sitting in a bar drinking beer and yelling at athletes on the TV screen all day, or sitting in a bowling alley drinking beer and rolling balls down an alley..which I just don't get, but anyway....
This weekend there's a little snag, and I'm the solution. Our friend (a wife of another hiker) is unavailable for drop off duty. Which happens to be in Placitas, a town 15 miles north of ours. So I am on drop off AND pick up duty.
The boys plan to buy me breakfast in appreciation for the a.m. drop off.
I'm thinking someone needs to get the driver a very dry, very dirty, very very cold martini with extra olives for the pick up.
Does that sound reasonable?
Granted, some of the best conversations I had with my kids, during their teen years in particular, I had in the car on the way to somewhere.
When baby girl got her drivers license, this all changed. Which was good! I worried about her being out there and I worried about other dumb drivers and I worried about her propensity for texting and I worried a lot. But I wasn't driving when I was worrying.
Fast forward 2.5 years. After a relatively quiescent period for schlepping, and much smaller gasoline tabs, to boot, I find myself on ground support duty for my husband and his buddies. Who hike every Saturday. Every Saturday.
Usually I'm on pickup, so when they pop out onto a trailhead after a hard day's hiking I'm there...and all is well. I get to listen to how hard it was, how cold it was, who almost fell, the bear scat they saw, the shortcut they learned from a really old guy who spends all of his spare time on the mountain exploring, and so on.
It's nice. I don't mind. But I do have to schedule my day around it. I consider their probable return as I figure out how to work out, study, run errands, nest, etc. Again, I don't really mind. After all, my husband could be doing something much less healthy, right? Like sitting in a bar drinking beer and yelling at athletes on the TV screen all day, or sitting in a bowling alley drinking beer and rolling balls down an alley..which I just don't get, but anyway....
This weekend there's a little snag, and I'm the solution. Our friend (a wife of another hiker) is unavailable for drop off duty. Which happens to be in Placitas, a town 15 miles north of ours. So I am on drop off AND pick up duty.
The boys plan to buy me breakfast in appreciation for the a.m. drop off.
I'm thinking someone needs to get the driver a very dry, very dirty, very very cold martini with extra olives for the pick up.
Does that sound reasonable?
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