He Needs a Back-Up Plan

This particular post falls into the UNAUTHORIZED part of my confessional blogging.  That is, confessing OTHER family members sins and shortcomings without their knowledge and or approval.  It's one of the perils of living in the same house with a serial blogger.  Around here we provide food, clothing, shelter and a mild amount of embarrassment.  We believe the latter is good for the immune system.

Unfortunately for Mark, this time he's the target.

For years I've taken a certain amount of condemnation from my husband in the area of my driving skills.  Unwarranted condemnation I might add, since I have a pretty clean driving record; no speeding tickets and only a few crashes and roll overs fender benders which happened mostly during my wayward youth when everyone at that age is expected to bend a little metal from time to time.  But because Mark had really never been the cause of a car accident he's always felt pretty self-assured in this area--no make that hubristic (it sounds a little more obnoxious).  I also think it's due to some damaged male gene that causes the whole of the gender to wildly overestimate their skill set in both operating and navigating anything with a motor in it.

So whenever I would politely recommend that he slow down or watch out for a pedestrian or some other small comment I make from time to time from the passenger's seat (as the female genes are programmed to make us do), he'd furrow his brows and say, "Listen sister, who's the one with the better driving record here??" 

 [Mark has a bad habit of taking the title "sister" in vain when he jokingly banters with any female...especially with his daughters.  Thankfully his sister recently heard him do this and put a stop to it!  Thank you Kathy!]

Now, a couple years ago his pristine driving record all changed.  Somehow he managed to back into someone's car in a parking lot.  If that wasn't embarrassing enough, while having his dent fixed, he backed the rental car into a building and dented that too.  Now whenever I give him driving advise and he goes to stop me, he begins with, "Listen..." then there's a long pause and he never really finishes his lecture on who's the better driver because his own record has now been called into question.

Yesterday was the icing on the cake humble pie.  He came home and was abnormally quiet.  Hmmmmmm.  That's very out of character for a man whose annoyingly and serendipitously happy all the time.  He came in the house, went directly over to our cutlery set, and started fillet-ing the mail. double hmmmmm.

"How was your day?"  I investigated.

"Fine."

"Everything fine?"  probing further.

"Yep."

"...And what are you not telling me?" 

He shakes his head in defeat.

I stare and attempt to raise an eye brow.

He begins to grin.

"Well...let's have it." I said a sinister smirk.  For years now my kids call me "the human lie detector" because I can smell perjury and spot camouflage before people even open their mouths.  Connor in particular hates this talent of mine as it's foiled his many schemes.  I knew Mark was withholding something quite entertaining.  And he knew this meant I was about to bask in the glee of watching this poor man declare an inevitable and humiliating surrender of some sort.

He shakes his head again and says, "If you really want to know, I bashed up my truck..." Then he lightly mutters,  "...and yes, I'm just gonna just get it out of the way...I was backing up at the time!"

I smile.  Then rush outside to look at the damage in all it's blunderous glory.

 

 

This is strike three.  And I am delighted at the prospect of higher insurance premiums because what it REALLY means I'm now getting double coverage!  One for auto and one for defamation against my driving character.

The funny thing is, that Mark defines a bad driver as one who crashes into another moving object, and  I contemptuously disagree.  Hitting a moving target requires skill.  Seriously, what kind of blockhead crashes into a stationary object??  That's far more embarrassing don't you think?  (And admittedly all the more humiliating when you wife posts the whole ordeal on the family blog.)  Perhaps this late night as seen on TV wireless back-up warning is in order to alert OTHERS outside his vehicle he's on the road.

Until this sweet contraption shows up in the mail, I may just relegate him back to driving "The Beast".  It's already got back-up sensors, and it sounds to me like someone needs a back up plan.

[Devilish laughter fades out.]