My morning commute

Ahhh, spring has sprung in Atlanta so the air is still clean and we have yet to be blanketed with the heinous pollen that turns our cars and road yellowish green. These mornings, I have the sun roof open, and music accompanies my morning commute. On this particular day, I am driving the munchkin to school. We are laughing and signing songs as we drive along. And then another morning commuter pulls in front of us so I am required to LOCK THEM UP as they say. I don't want to lay on brakes so heavily that locking them up is the only passageway out of an accident. And I certainly do not want to do that with my two year old in the car. And I certainly do not want to lock them up, with two year old in the car, when I can not express my displeasure through profanities because I have my two year old in the car. So I try to say, as under my breath as possible, "areyoukiddingme?".

To which, my son, with razorsharp hearing, says "are you kidding me Mommy!"

So my first objective: flip the switch on the PR machine and work on some spin. I said to our son, "Actually, do you know what we should say when we honk the horn? We should say, 'Hi Friend!'
Let's practice."

So for the next ten miles plus, whenever I could inconspicuously honk the horn (we were on side roads) I did and we practiced saying "Hi Friend!".

When I discussed above incident with JohnnyMac, I witnessed only the mildest alarm pass his face, but he did retort that he was relieved because it could have been so much worse. Interesting tactic JohnnyMac. I asked him if he thought it sounded nice to hear those words out of our son's mouth who was only eighteen months at the time. JohnnyMac held strong to the "could have been worse" response but he did agree, such words, from a baby, not so nice.

Now, I tried with all my might to say "Hi Friend" when I had a true opportunity to do so but I failed. I wanted to give my self a standing ovation for only saying "Are you kidding me" when one of my preferred phrases is these situations is "Are you (!*&^*!&% kidding me?!?!?!?!?") So, we are all culpable. I did however, quickly revert back to my "HI FRIEND" motto and we practiced that several times as we drove along. Mentally, reminding myself that I have to continue to work on patience and my wicked retorts.

And then, we pulled up to a light and my son asked me "What's that man doing?" So I looked in the direction he was pointing only to see a man, pale as bread flour sitting in the car next to us at the light. How do I know he was so pale? Because he was shirtless. And our windows were down. And his windows were down. So he looked over, and we looked back. And I didn't have a thing to say! So I told my son that man was enjoying his morning commute. My son asked "Where his shirt go?" Good question, buddy. So let's just wave and say "Hi Friend!"

Oh Humor, thank you for popping up on my morning commute. I know you are never far and I will continue to look for you everyday.