Monday, October 12, 2009

My mom the tailgater.

Well, I had trial last week on the case that had helped to improve my street cred a while back. And we won.

[Hold for applause . . .]

For some reason, we didn't have court on Tuesday so I took a little break and went to Conroe to see my niece Emma cheering at a volleyball game. The gym where the game was is about a 15 minute drive on the freeway from The Woodlands so I headed on up there. My mom, who also lives in The Woodlands, was already at the gym and, since it was a little hidden, she was on the phone with me giving me play-by-play directions to the game. She told me to park in a parking lot across from the gym because that's where she was parked, as well.

My mom recently got a new, Extra-Long Expedition and it's a great car. It has a DVD player, wireless headsets for the kids, a navigation system, satellite radio, and bluetooth so that her cell phone transmits through her car speakers. The bluetooth feature is particularly nice for her because it enables her to call us through her steering wheel so that she never has to take her hands off the wheel. Since she's a bit nervous when driving it, that's a nice feature. And why is she nervous, you ask? Because it is, well, extra long. She's used to driving a little Impala and the Expedition just feels like too much car for her so we most often see her driving her Impala while talking about how she needs to take her Expedition out to practice driving it. Except for the whole "driving it" part, she's done a pretty good job of learning her new car but she's had a few hiccups here and there. For instance, she recently took it on a road trip to Dallas and, while she was on the road, I got a few phone calls from her that she wasn't aware that she was making via bluetooth so I had several road noise voicemails. I could tell that one of the calls was intentional because I could hear the road noise and then could hear her exclaim, completely exasperated "WHAT THE HELL??" I must have listened to that voicemail 300 times, each time laughing like it was the first. I love it when her car perplexes her so I hope she doesn't figure it all out TOO quickly.

As I pulled in the parking lot next to the gym in Conroe where Emma was cheering, I saw my mom's Expedition. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaan how did I know it was hers?

Because the tailgate was wide open. And I mean WIDE open.

I called her to tell her and she came out from the gym to see for herself. I figured that she had accidentally hit the button on her remote as she was walking away from her car - you know, something normal like that. But this is my mom so WHY would I expect the explanation to be so ordinary and mundane? No, friends - with Nora, you should always expect something MUCH more entertaining than run-of-the-mill. Here is the exchange that followed in the parking lot . . .

Mom: Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaatherine? [pointing to the WIDE OPEN tailgate] Is that how it was when you got here?
Me: Yeah!
Mom: Well, it was like that the whole way here then!
Me: What?? On the HIGHWAY??
Mom: [Her eyebrows slightly knitted and yet with a look of "it's all becoming clear to me now."] Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees. People just kept honking at me and honking at me.
Me: Wha- . . . [laughing too hard to respond]
Mom: An 18 wheeler honked so loud I thought he was going to drive right up my butt.
Me: [bending over because my abs are hurting]
Mom: I just kept thinking "I should have test driven this car before I bought it because you can REALLY hear the road noise in this car."
Me: [throwing my head back, wiping tears from my face]
Mom: Now I know why all those people were honking at me. And why they didn't seem as loud once they passed me.
Me: [holding my sides, trying to draw breath, and pulling out my phone to call as many people as I can]
Mom: Well . . . that's really something . . .

Yes it is, Mom. Yes it is.

And so are YOU.

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