Car talk

Some of our best conversations happen in the car.

Last week it began with a long monologue from my co-pilot about office work.

"I would be a terrible secretary," she proclaimed.


I gave her the side eye and gestured that she should go on.

"It's like if I was at work and some guy comes in and says to me, 'File this,' I would say, 'You have hands, file it yourself!' And if he yelled at me, I'd get him a ball gag," she said.

Curious, if not mildly shocked, I asked how she had come to know what a ball gag is.

"Mom, I'm 15," she informed me. "I know things."

 I offered up a silent prayer and said, "OK, what is a ball gag?"

She looked at me like I was an idiot. "You know, it's what you put on a dog to keep it quiet."

I thanked whatever divine providence had answered said prayer. "Uh, that's a muzzle," I said.

"Yeah! A ball gag," she argued.

"No," I said. "It's a muzzle. Why do you call it a ball gag?"

Patiently, she agreed to educate me. "I saw something on the Internet and a dog had a ball in his mouth and the caption said something about keeping your dog quiet," she explained.

"Actually, a ball gag is a sex toy," I said.

Silence. 

Then: "I would be a terrible secretary." and she picked up her soliloquy on how she would rise up against her oppressors should she ever find herself in the secretarial pool.

Somehow, I don't see her there.

From October 2010

She and I were in the car the other day, and I mentioned a boy in her class. His name is Sammy Kacius, and I always pronounce it with a hard "a," which is wrong.

"Mom. It's Kascius," she said for perhaps the 1,098th time.

"Man, I hope you don't marry him. I'll never get your name right," I said.

"Dude," she replied. "If I marry Sammy Kacius, he's changing HIS name."


October 2009 
"Hey Mom. You wanna know what I think?" she calls from the back seat.

Of course I bit: "What do you think?"

"I think those people who sing those songs are telling everyone about their PERSONAL BUSINESS, that's what I think," she said, clearly disapproving.





October 2009

In the car, Ali was discussing her hope to be a ninja for Halloween this year. She wants only her eyes to show and she'll go around karate chopping anyone who gets in her way - Hai-yah!

"Did you run that by your Aunt Donna?" I asked. "I'm not sure she's ever done a ninja. Aren't you at least a little bit concerned?"

"Nope," she said.

"Why not?"

"Well she hasn't had one problem with any of my costumes yet," says the girl who never sees the process, just the fabulous finished work.

In other news, the heat wave is taking a toll on us but Jeff and I took a long bike ride early this morning. Ali had demurred, insisting she wasn't yet awake. When we got back, my FitBit hadn't yet buzzed and I'd been talking about pedicures, so I convinced her to walk into Broad Ripple with me.

Jeff had offered to play Uber if we wanted and I'd decided that if I buzzed on the way, I would take him up on it. I did, he did, and we lunched at A Taste of Havana. It was great.

Since then, it's been blessed air conditioning.