I am not a perfect parent. I have never claimed to be one and every day I am reminded a little more of how imperfect – and in some cases downright terrible – I am. Today was one of those days.
I am a very impatient driver. I never took the advice of “Don’t drive angry!” given by Bill Murray’s character in “Groundhog Day.” As I grow older I find myself less tolerant of what I consider poor driving form each and every day, and living in one of the most congested regions of the United States is only exacerbating my petulance behind the wheel. Today I was running late, it was raining, and it was rush hour. It was really my own fault, too – which I firmly realized while driving - and was therefore a little bit more miffed with my own poor planning while I was behind the wheel. This is the setting in which I may have found a cure to at least one aspect of my boiling temper.
I had just picked up my oldest daughter from one after-school activity and was carting her to another. I was sitting in line waiting to make a left turn at an unregulated intersection; an intersection I have grown to loathe yet there is no reasonable alternative to using. The car in front of me, a Prius if it makes a difference, was attempting to make the turn and after what seemed like an eternity I saw a YUUUGE gap that easily could have been exploited by a geriatric Rascal pilot. However, an aging pilot of mobility scooters, the Prius-driver was not. The driver balked; I fumed and I then verbally expressed my assessment of the driver’s sexual proclivities. The proper term is “fellatio enthusiast” but I was not feeling very proper at the time and used the pejorative while channeling all the episodes of HBO’s Deadwood that I ever watched. I hit all the consonants hard – there were flecks of phlegm and spit bouncing around the inside of my mouth as I verbalized all my frustration in one unbroken and guttural stream of three syllables. All the frustration of 45 minutes of driving in rainy central Maryland during rush hour in one beautifully terrible word.
Apparently my commentary was felt within the confines of the car in front of me and the Prius pulled out and turned left. I gunned the engine, dropped the clutch and flew into the intersection to follow them and as I made the turn I felt a bitter satisfaction for a brief moment until… “What does [fellatio enthusiast] mean?” queried my beautiful and inquisitive 14-year-old daughter? A few thoughts immediately crashed through my mind. “Aiiiieeeyaiyaiiii”, “She’s in the car with me!” “She hasn’t learned that, yet?” “Public School education isn’t what it used to be,” and “I am a terrible father” were a few of them, not necessarily in that order. I immediately stumbled over my own tongue apologizing for my coarse and unbecoming language. I explained that it was an inappropriate way to refer to anyone and at no time should she use that word.
“But what does it mean?”
This was a hard question that was going to be answered, one way or another. My options ranged from “When two people love each other…” to “your mom when she’s drunk and I’m charming” but I settled for “It’s sexual” thinking it a diplomatic and effective way of shunting this conversation into a brick wall of awkwardness. And it was quiet. And I felt marginally better. And then she asked:
“Can I look it up on Google?”
Bullet Time is not what they show you in the movies. It is not a sudden 360° awareness of all things explody and dangerous going on around you. It is not the ability to see the quarks and gluons whiz past you in slow motion. It is not skin-tight leather-clad athletes masquerading as actors dodging what would normally be certain death by concussion and bleeding out. No, bullet time is visualizing your daughter ask her younger sisters to watch as she grabs a tablet and asks, “OK Google, define ‘[fellatio enthusiast]’”. The spinny cursor spins, the results drop down – complete with pictures because you haven’t ensured that ‘Safe Search’ is hard-wired into every browser ever created anywhere. Then the charming voice of not-Siri explains the intricate details of a person who enjoys what was best described to Sir Lancelot in Monty Python’s Search for the Holy Grail as “Oral Pleasure” to the eager ears of my all-too-sheltered daughters. And then, “Oh look! What’s Urban Dictionary?” This visualization takes the amount of time for the car to progress the distance of one dashed-center line at 45 miles an hour on the road between the Taekwondo gym and the dance studio. THAT is bullet time – the split second between when she asked if she could open Pandora’s Box and the time it took me to gasp, “Oh God, no. Please no, dear. It will ruin your childhood and you’ll be scarred for life. And it’s all my fault. No.”
Then the awkwardness started. The Awkwardness punctuated by the soothing sounds of the Christian radio station in the background reminding me that I am most definitely a sinner in need of forgiveness. The awkwardness where I once again got to contemplate exactly how terrible of a parent I am, and how a simple question of “Can I look it up on Google?” can shatter the illusion of a mundane rainy Tuesday afternoon drive when I can’t control my mouth and my anger. The awkwardness brought on by the realization that I now had no choice but to explain my vocabulary and have an unavoidable talk that didn’t need to be. Awkwardness and… laughter.
I laughed. Hard. She looked at me like had the object of a fellatio enthusiast’s affection growing from my forehead. “Why are you laughing? What’s so funny!?” as only a bewildered teenager can whine. And I laughed more as I tried to figure out the answer to that question. Shock? Traumatic response to stress? Or maybe relief. Relief that I had potentially found a cure for my foul mouth behind the wheel. Relief that perhaps this was the cure that all the disapproving stares from Jenn and strained silences from my kids couldn’t provide. A cure in the form of this blog post that my parents read that I instantly began formulating because self-inflicted public shame is how I deal with my own insufficiencies. I kept laughing up until we pulled into the parking lot of the dance studio and looked my daughter in the eye and said “It means someone who likes to suck on penises.” She blanched, jumped out of the car with her dance bag and ran up the stairs to dance rehearsal.
I drove home almost assured that there will be no Google searches for a day or two. Or maybe there will be. Maybe there will be another long talk later tonight and I’ll be reminded yet again why I need to calm down when I drive and be a good role model for my kids. Until I figure this out I’ve got one more reason to chill out behind the wheel. Because my kids have Google.
