Driving Hell

For someone who is not working at a paying job this week I certainly had a day reminiscent of my past workdays.  The whole thing started with a carpool to school for Carter and our neighbor Price so they could attend Drivers Ed.  Poor things barely got the weekend off after school ended and now they are sitting in a class for three hours with out a break, each day starting at 8:00 in the morning.

After dropping them I ran to the grocery and back home to drop my bags.  Back in the car and drove half an hour to Cary for a meeting.  An hour later back to Durham for two hours of Mah Jongg therapy with lunch.  Go pick Carter up and drove twenty-five minutes to Chapel Hill for her camp physical then back home to drop her off.  Back in the car to Raleigh for a meeting at the Food Bank then a forty-five minute rush hour drive back to Church for a meeting.  Amazingly I was home at 6:00.

I spent almost four hours of my day driving.  Yuck, and to think I used to be in sales and spent everyday driving to customers.  With the exception of Mah Jongg everything I did had to be done today so I had little choice, but it certainly felt like a job.  The meetings were not the problem, but the getting to them was the part that wore me out.

I can hardly wait until Carter can drive herself places or even drive me.  I remember the day I got my drivers license when I was 16.  No sooner had I gotten home with that little laminated piece of paper than my Dad handed me his dry cleaning and told me to go to the village and drop it off.  Oh happy day!  I was given the car and a chance to drive all by myself.  I happily volunteered for every driving errand my parents had.  I could not imagine not wanting to drive.

I guess that I might feel differently when I am in the throws of Carter practicing driving with me as the passenger, but I can hardly wait for her to drive.  Imagine a child who can drive herself.   I wonder if it would be too haughty to sit in the back seat and needlepoint while Carter chauffeurs me around?  I’m a terrible back seat driver already so I am going to need all the distractions I can get so I don’t scare her to death.  When the practice driving get’s bad I am going to remember today and how much I want another driver in the family.