Parenting at the Drive Thru

Parenting at the Drive Thru

The girls have taken over the living room, in particular the stereo with the big Clipshorn speakers and they are playing an album by Cruel Hearts, the Rap group. The bass notes are synchronizing with the drum beats causing a vibrating buzz of pictures hanging on the other side of the wall, in his study. He can feel it vibrating the floor, the chair, and his viscera. He is on his feet. Maniacal. His daughters would say that he had "lost it".
Instantly, he is in the living room, and screaming," Turn that crap off. I promised your mother a tax return, and I'm working on it now. Grunting about drugs and oral sex is not music. I said turn it off -- Now!"
There is no room for argument. The girls head for the bedroom in hostile silence. He is alone. The adrenaline is subsiding, but he is dangerously close to breaking the pact. He has agreed not to censor Andrea's music. He has agreed that she may keep any records that she has bought with her earnings. Her first purchase had been that Cruel Hearts CD. Andrea and Mike have differences on some important issues; but, strangely, their most bitter struggles have been about music. It is the emotional "line in the dirt".
He takes a slow, deep breath.
Parenting has been a little rocky lately. Andrea is having problems. She is fifteen and awash in hormones. She broke up with her boy friend last week and life is just doesn’t seem possible. Her parents say that there are "other fish in the sea". As Andrea is quick to point out, you have to be there when the fish are biting. The hours that she is allowed to keep have become very sensitive in this time of her loss. Mike and Judy have decided to negotiate reasonable hours with Andrea. If she keeps their trust with those hours, they can trust her to drive the family car. Driving privileges after Andrea's upcoming 16th birthday are in the balance. In her view, the problem is parents with an attitude.
Mike worked for a couple of hours. The tax records are in pretty good order, and the return is starting to fall into place. Judy and Mike have finished dinner. They are talking about their new refrigerator that arrived for their kitchen remodel. This remodel project is taking 3 weeks longer than expected. It’s over budget. Tempers are short. The project has been most recently stalled by a long wait for the special refrigerator that Judy has ordered.
The phone rings. It breaks the tension for Mike as he shifts his attention to answer. It’s his friend Kevin, a friendly ear to bend. After the greeting small talk, he listens, and then says, "Yeah, it finally came. You ever seen an $1800 refrigerator?" Mike listens again, then replies, " Well we've got one over here in the garage. It’s going in on Monday. Ice maker, ice crusher, ice water dispenser, full length freezer and for the last $500 it has no visible handles and it perfectly matches the tile on the counters." He is listening to the reply; now, he is chuckling, "Oh, no. We are fixing up the old one for the cabin ... we had to special order the parts because it's 25 years old. Now we have two refrigerators in our garage." He finishes the conversation and heads for the study to finish up the tax return.
There is a tremendous crash. Mike's first thought is that the Rap is on again and has vibrated several pictures which have fallen from the wall. He runs to the living room. Nothing. He is puzzled.
He opens the door to the garage. Both of the refrigerators have been up-ended and damaged. Mike looks through the hole in the back wall of the garage into the back yard. He can see the family car on the back lawn with its engine gently idling.
Andrea is sitting at the wheel, frozen. The brake lights are on.
Mike is at the car door, trying to maintain control, "Are you Ok?"
She has covered her face with both hands. She nods her hear “yes”.
“Put it in ‘Park’,” he says.
She is not hurt. He relaxes a little.
Andrea shifts to ‘Park’, turns the key, and gets out as the engine stops. She runs to her room. Her door closes as Mike, having followed her part way, finds himself in the living room. The lock of Andrea’s door clicks. That sets him in motion. He heads straight for the CD player. Suddenly, Mike is holding the edges of a CD with his finger tips, each thumb at the center hole. Pushing with the thumbs and pulling with the fingers, he feels a satisfying snap and Cruel Hearts is in two pieces.
Judy came home to the disaster. She has been in Andrea's room for an hour. She enters the living room.
"What do you think happened?" she asks.
"Confused the gas and brake, I think," he says.
"How did she drive through the garage, over two refrigerators, and through a wall before she figured it out?" she asks incredulously.
Mike shrugs and holds his hands out palms up.
"She says that she didn’t actually intend to drive. She was just sitting in the parked car practicing her driving."
Mike is staring out the window, distracted. "I broke her Cruel Hearts CD. It was almost the first thing I did. Why do you think I did that?"
"It’s kind of like starting the engine not intending to drive."