The Car Conversation

WOE!

"Mom, what car can I have when I start driving?"
"Mom, can I drive?"
NO!  You're TWELVE!
"Mom, when I get a car it's going to be..." blah blah blah blah

There's something in the water that mandates seventh graders begin the car quest.  They fantasize about sitting behind the wheel of a sleek sports car, cruising down curving roads, wind mysteriously whisking through their hair.... yeah whatever.  Dream on baby.

I've been down this road before, twice to be exact.  I know that for the next four years conversations are going to pop up at random times about dream cars and the constant quest to take the car for a spin.  As passengers they will critique passing cars, outlining desirable qualities.  The car conversation is never complete.  It is a wishlist that drones on and on with rude interruptions from parents reminding to finish homework, eat dinner, take showers and go to sleep, only to start up the next day.  And the following day.  And the day after that.

While I won't let anyone drive until at least a driver's permit is earned, I will allow certain pesky children take the keys and start my car.  Little do they realize they're being used.  Who else but a car crazy child would be willing to venture out in the freezing cold morning just for the "glory" to start the car?  It's a quick way to kick a pacing kid out of the house while you're still getting ready. 

Besides starting the car, they can set the radio, pump it up to deafening tones and imagine for three minutes that they are, in fact, winding the car down a twisting road with the air rushing through their hair - swoosh swoosh - until I finally manage to haul my ass out of the house.  A quick scramble to turn down the radio, get out of the driver's seat and into the back, and the "driver" is a child again, left to critique passing cars.

Maybe it's that his feet are finally able to reach the pedals?  Hard to say.  But this is the age that the car conversation begins and it doesn't stop until the novelty of being a new driver finally wears off... oh somewhere around seventeen.

If you're good at math that means it's been three years since my last child finally quit yammering on about getting a car, driving a car, dreaming about a car.  Three years.  That is a short ass reprieve considering there are eight years between middle and youngest child.  Such is life.