Shutting the Shuttle Down

Twenty years. That's how long My Lovely Wife and I have run the shuttle. This September will mark twenty years of transporting the transportationally-disadvantaged to any number of locations within a 20-mile radius of our home for any number of reasons.

• Doctor appointments
• Daycare
• Day camps
• Pre-school
• Gymnastics
• Dance classes
• Elementary school
• Sunday school
• Girl Scouts
• Boy Scouts
• Birthday parties
• Middle school
• Dance recitals
• Sleepovers
• Summer camps
• Church youth groups
• Band camps
• High School
• Band competitions
• Concerts
• Robotics competitions
• Track meets
• College tours

Logging sufficient hours each month to earn a chauffeur's license isn't the half of it. Child safety seats required for small children come equipped with a complexity of straps and harnesses worthy of the greatest puzzle masters. When strapping your first born into a car seat outside the hospital, they ought to warn you to prepare yourself for a buckling system so ridiculously intricate it should come equipped with a flight attendant to guide you through the procedure every time you leave the house.

"Take the right shoulder strap, feed it through the plastic chest thingy and down between your child's legs. Take the left shoulder strap, feed it through the other side of the plastic chest thingy until you realize you have the chest thingy backwards. Undo the right shoulder strap, reverse the chest thingy, feed the right shoulder strap back through the chest thingy, then the left shoulder strap, and place the two metal tabs at the ends of the straps together. They should fit like puzzle pieces, but they won't snap together because that would be cheating. Holding the two metal tabs together with one hand and picking up your child's fallen binky with the other, press the conjoined tabs into a narrow, invisible groove that lies directly beneath your child's heavily diapered buttocks. Spend the next three minutes struggling to fit the conjoined tabs into the invisible slot while cursing. Once you find the narrow slot and have inserted the metal tabs, press with a force much greater than you believe is safe for your child. If your child is not crying when you have finished, then he or she is probably not securely buckled. Return to step one and repeat the entire process."

It isn't just infants who need car seats. As your children grow, car seats morph like Transformers from back-facing infant seats, to forward facing infant seats, to half-infant/half-toddler seats, to small toddler booster seats, to large toddler booster seats, to the my-child-is-way-too-freaking-big-to-need-a-booster-seat booster seats. If there weren't a cut-off for age, most people I know would be riding with booster seats because the cut-off for height is six-foot-three.

If you're silly enough to have more than two children -- in fairness to us, effective family planning is impossible when they choose to arrive in pairs -- you'll need a vehicle of size, if not two. When our first child arrived, half our fleet was instantly hobbled because the Mazda Miata was not designed to serve as a baby-transporting device. The Miata, itself, is barely bigger than a pram, with almost enough leg room for a tall dwarf and head clearance adequate for a medium-height badger. With the invention of twins, it didn't take long for us to embrace the minivan, and later the minivan with automatic doors. Scoff if you must at the unsexy middle-aging of my family unit, but few things liberate the middle-class American more than pressing a button to eject children into the school drop off line. It's like all the convenience of tossing them out the window, only with a brief stop and the assurance of a soft landing.

Don't think older children are any easier to shuttle. Sure, you can celebrate ditching the diaper bag, bottles and spare onesies, but they are quickly replaced by school bags, instruments, dance bags, and after school club supplies. If children aged without taking on extracurricular activities, which I believe is a perfectly reasonable expectation, then life might get easier, but they don't. Before you know it, you're running each of them in a different direction for a variety of reasons that all begin at the exact same time at locations miles apart, and finish in 30 minute intervals conveniently spread over the dinner hours. Artistic programs such as band and dance are the best, by which I mean the most obnoxious, because there's something about artistic people that instills in them the belief that their programs represent the most important commitments your child will ever make. Every rehearsal and performance is mandatory. Absence or tardiness -- regardless of how many of your relatives just tragically died from powdered sugar inhalation at the donut factory explosion -- results in the stripping of privileges or public shaming. As if you weren't already stressed about managing a multi-stop municipal bus route, now your child is fussing at you to drive faster so she won't have to do push-ups in front of the rest of the kids in marching band.

With one child halfway through college (how the fu-hell did I get that old?) and the twins mere months away from being granted their driver's licenses, it might be possible that M&D Taxi is coming to the end of its days. I say "might be" because we so far have been colossally wrong about each coming stage being easier than the present one. I can not, however, in my wildest imaginings foresee the need for continued shuttle service, at least not on a daily basis, even with the twins sharing a vehicle.

Should the end of the shuttle era truly be at hand, the ramifications will ripple through our personal and professional lives with immeasurable results. My Lovely Wife and I will be able to spend the kind of time together we haven't enjoyed since September 1997. If we're smart, we won't leave the house for a month.



© 2017 Mark Feggeler

Please Stop...

We had a great vacation last week.

Pennsylvania is lovely and the countryside surrounding the city of Lancaster particularly so. Over the course of seven days, we managed to visit historic Philadelphia, HersheyPark, the Julius Sturgiss Pretzel Factory, Luray Caverns, and we even found time one morning for breakfast at IHOP. Incidentally, blueberry cannoli pancakes should be permanently emblazoned on every IHOP menu from now through the end of eternity. If you haven’t tried them yet, what the hell are you waiting for?

For some reason, the soundtrack to our family “Road” movie included quite a bit of Journey. 

Turn on the radio and there’s “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’.” Pull into a gas station and get greeted by “Wheel in the Sky” from overhead speakers. Sit down in a restaurant booth and you’re tapping along to “Any Way You Want It” before you consciously acknowledge the song is even playing.

Now, if Journey had never formed as a rock band and later devolved into a lightweight video power ballad band my life wouldn’t be any the lesser for it, but I am not a Journey hater. I don’t hold a grudge against Carlos Santana for suggesting to Neal Schon that he start his own group, and I don’t harbor ill will toward MTV for the thousands of times it replayed the horrifically horrible video for “Separate Ways.” 

I freely admit to enjoying the group’s music. Show me any person in his or her forties who claims to never have attempted to match Steve Perry’s wailing voice in “Faithfully” while sitting alone in a car and I’ll show you a big fat liar.

Regardless of my enjoyment of the bands numerous hits, there was one Journey song that kept popping up round every corner during our trip, most especially during our two days at HersheyPark. You couldn’t hide from it, shut your ears to it, or put it out of your mind because the song, continuing its rise up from the ashes of clichéd eighties pop culture, refuses to die.

“Don’t Stop Believin’” -- apart from being one of several song titles that suggest Journey had a passionate distrust of the letter “G” -- is one of the more commercially successful covers by the cast of Glee, a show single-handedly responsible for convincing teens around the globe that all high schools have the budgets and technical ability to stage professionally choreographed karaoke competitions. This has led to all cover bands everywhere, even Death Metal cover bands, adding the song to their portfolios of musical butchery.

There was the Dueling Pianos show at HersheyPark that featured the song. Three talented pianists in bright suits who worked it into their 30-minute performance of piano-based pop tunes. Passable.

Fifty feet away was the all-girl cover band, Patty and the Peppermints, that featured the song. Six or seven young women in dire need of a properly functioning sound board and at least one band member with the ability to tune an instrument. Mildly annoying.

Then there was the roaming street trio that attempted the song. Three aspiringly disengaging waifs with instruments on loan from the Toys ‘R Us throwback collection. Intolerable.

At this point, I’m just happy to be home where I have more direct control over the soundtrack of my life. Until, of course, Our Daughter hops in the shower and cranks up the teenage tunage. What are the chances that’s actually Journey singing "Don't Stop Believin'?"

© 2014 Mark Feggeler

All I Need Is Gas

It used to be you drove up to the pump and gassed up your car.

The procedure was simple, involving an empty gas tank, a pump, and cash. You watched the meter whizzing through the numbers and slowed the flow when you neared a total cost matching that of the bill in your wallet (usually a ten or twenty). Then you walked up to the dirty office to hand over your payment. That was it. Maybe you washed your windshield, or bought a Coke, but gas-wise you were done.

These days, thanks to technological advancements, gassing up your vehicle isn't so easy. Removing the human element from the gas-purchasing transaction should simplify the process. It doesn't.

For example, no self-respecting human being would be comfortable forcing you to play a game of twenty questions before allowing you to make a simple purchase, but a fully-automated electronic gas pump programmed to glean as much information out of you as possible doesn't mind making you jump through hoops like a trained monkey. It begins inconspicuously.

   "PLEASE SWIPE CARD."

   I do.

   "CREDIT OR DEBIT?"

   I press the button for credit card.

   "ENTER ZIP CODE."

   I wonder why this is necessary and do it anyway.

   "CAR WASH?"

   Yes.

   "DELUXE CAR WASH?"

   No.

   "FUEL INJECTION CLEANER ADDITIVE?"

   Of course not.

   "DISTANCE PLUS MILEAGE BOOSTER ADDITIVE?"

   Huh?

   "DONATE $1 TO FOOD BANK?"

   No.

   "HOT DOG, DRINK & CHIPS FOR $2.99?"

   Not hungry.

   "ENTER WEIGHT."

   One-eighty-five.

   "ENTER  REAL WEIGHT."

   Hey now!

   "YOUR SESSION HAS TIMED OUT. PLEASE SWIPE CARD."

At this point, I give the pump a swift kick and start trying to figure out how long it would take me to bicycle from Raleigh to Baltimore to visit my clients.



© 2013 Mark Feggeler

Forever Young

Today, my little girl broke my heart. Multiple times. Intentionally.

To start with, somebody told her it was acceptable for her to turn sixteen. I don't care what anyone says. I don't care what year it is versus what year she was born. I really don't care how many birthday cards she received, nor do I care how many people came to her Sweet 16 party, she is not sixteen.

She looks like this:

Or, like this:

But that's as far as I'm willing to take it. Just barely out of diapers, but not in high school, not studying a level of calculus that makes me dizzy, and not, most definitely not, driving.

Nope! Stop it! Not even looking. (Fingers in ears, chanting "La, la, la, la, la, la, la...) Who gave this rotten kid permission to grow up?

Okay, so maybe she isn't a full-fledged adult, yet, but she has her driver's license and we were stupid enough to buy her her own car. You know what she did today after dinner? She drove herself to dance. By herself. Without so much as an apology for not needing us to bring her anymore. How am I supposed to accept the reality of her being allowed to roam the roads unsupervised when it seems like only yesterday I was bathing her in the kitchen sink and buttoning her onesies?

Let her grow up. See if I care. Let her turn into a little old lady, if that's where she's heading. No matter what happens, or how old she gets, or whatever she accomplishes in her life, in my mind's eye she will always look like this:

© 2013 Mark Feggeler

Drop 'Em and Move Along

You know when you're dropping your kids off to school in the morning?

Particularly when dropping off younger children to kindergarten, there's that special moment when you share high fives and words of encouragement. Maybe they need you to open the door for them and you steal one last hug before sending them on their way into the building for the day. It's one of those occasions when you realize you are standing in the middle of a precious memory. You want it to last forever. You wave them off as they scamper away, only to have the moment tainted by some impatient clock-watcher honking his horn and gesticulating wildly at you from inside his Honda minivan.

That clock-watcher is me.

I have three kids, the youngest of which will complete their elementary-level education experience at the end of the current school year. I understand what you people with younger kids are going through, but you really must find a way to understand that I don't care.

While you're standing outside your car trying desparately to cope with the fact your children have graduated from bouncy seats and diapers to backpacks and packed lunches, there's a line of cars three miles long choking the public streets for six blocks in every direction thanks to the fifteen-minute unloading ritual you've chosen to perform.

Take it from me, your kids will be fine. Stop the small talk, kick them out of your Explorer, and keep the line moving. There are things the rest of us would rather be doing.

Like showering. I'm a big fan of showering, especially on mornings when I'm sweaty from the 5:30am cycling class and smell like a combination of dirty socks, vinegar and garlic (or, as Our Daughter calls it, "old man funk"). I also enjoy eating breakfast, brushing my teeth, wearing clean clothes, going to the bathroom, and starting my workday, each of which now has to wait because your peripheral vision is so impaired you couldn't see the angry glares of every driver in line behind you.
And here's a helpful tip. Get your kid's stuff packed up before you leave for school.

School happens almost every weekday between September and June. The local school system hands out calendars -- free ones! -- so you can find out in advance on what days there will be school. You had days, weeks, possibly even months to prepare for this morning's drop off. So why, then, is your kid juggling loose school supplies and papers like his backpack just vomited?

Please, we don't want to hate you. You seem like a nice lady, and you clearly love your children, as evidenced by the fifth pat on the head you've given your son and the twelfth hug you've given your daughter. But for the love of all that's holy, drop 'em off and move along. I promise, they won't look any different when you pick them up seven hours from now.


© 2012 Mark Feggeler

A Blowout, 3 Tow Trucks, and Grease Monkey Fairies

Ryan from AAA probably didn't expect a long conversation when he called Friday at midnight to ask if we were completely satisfied with the service we had received that evening. He surely must have been expecting something along the lines of:

    Ryan: "Are you completely satisfied with your AAA experience?"

    Me: "Yes."

    Ryan: "Great. Thanks. Goodbye."

To be fair, Ryan might be a great guy. Probably a good family man, or a clean-cut college kid, with a good moral compass fixed deep inside him. And his only involvement with our situation the other night was to perform a simple follow up survey. In no way did poor Ryan deserve the verbal thumping he was about to receive, but things don't always go the way they should.

THE SET UP

At 9:00am Friday morning, we loaded up our Honda Odyssey and left the sweltering clamminess of Long Island for the slightly less clammy sweltering of North Carolina. Our vacation was over and it was time to head home. The trip went well until we got south of Washington, DC, and joined all the traffic heading down I-95 to the Virginia beaches. We lost almost two hours in stand-still stop-and-go before breaking free of it in Richmond. The rest of the way should have been smooth sailing.

Then, about 10 miles east of Raleigh, as I was reaching 80 mph in the passing lane, a boom like a cannon blast shook the van and it felt like we'd hit a major pothole. Our speed dropped rapidly and steering got a little dodgy. Within seconds we were at a standstill on the left shoulder with a blown rear driver-side tire. That was 7:35pm Friday night.

THE RESPONSE

The first indication of our impending drama was, initially, merely laughable.

When My Lovely Wife called AAA to report our blown tire, the dispatcher taking the call was unreasonably fixated on whether or not we had already traveled through, or were in, or were anywhere in the vicinity of, Spring Hope. Having never heard of Spring Hope, we instead focused on the facts we did know, which were that we had broken down on 64 bypass heading west and could see exit 427 through our windshield.

Unimpressed by our specifics, the dispatcher continued to ask about Spring Hope. Why? I don't know. Maybe Spring Hope has a really nice old-fashioned soda fountain somewhere along its main drag the dispatcher thought our kids would enjoy while we waited for service, or maybe the town has grease monkey fairies that pop out of cocoons in the roadside shrubberies to assist AAA Plus members with blown tires.

Whatever the reason, the dispatcher's inability to plot our location on the map was cause for concern. If there is any organization in this best of all possible worlds I expect should be able to pinpoint my location when I tell them what road I'm on and what exit I'm next to, it's the Automobile Association of America. A five-year-old with an iPod could've Googled our location based on the details we offered, but apparently this AAA dispatcher didn't have internet access, a functioning computer, a printed map, or any measure of innate common sense.

After five minutes on the phone, all we were able to establish was she didn't know where we were, we didn't know where Spring Hope was, and our hope of speedy service was flushing noisily down the drain.

THE LUG NUT

Not to drag out an otherwise lengthy tale, but let's speak briefly about Honda's infamous locking lug nut.

It's a special lug nut that requires a key. The idea behind the locking lug nut is it deters thieves interested in stealing generic tires off unsexy vehicles like the Honda Odyssey. Honda gives you the key when you buy the vehicle, so in a case like ours we can unlock the locking lug nut, remove the remaining standard lug nuts, and remove and replace the damaged tire.

But what happens when that key breaks and simply spins without unlocking anything?

That's right, the tire becomes irremovable, irreplaceable, and Honda's brilliant anti-theft device becomes inconveniently irritating. What should have been a twenty-minute stop to swap out the blown tire for the donut in the trunk became a tow job, but not just any old regular tow job. No, sir.

Because the tire in question was a rear tire, traditional towing was no longer an option and we required a flat bed truck to carry our van home.

THE TAILSPIN

In addition to now requiring one of the larger vehicles in the towing service's fleet, the fact there were five of us to be transported home along with our van complicated matters. We quickly learned from the driver of the first tow truck that showed up about AAA's policy of transportating the vehicle, the driver, and maybe one other person. Anyone else traveling with us would need to take a shuttle service or taxi. I'm not exactly certain how much an 82-mile taxi ride from Knightdale to Pinehurst might cost, but I'm willing to guess it ain't cheap, so I asked to speak with the supervisor of Spring Hope's number one fan to express my dissatisfaction.

To the supervisor's credit, she spent much of the next two-and-a-half hours trying to work out a resolution to our problem. To her discredit, she left us stranded for two-and-a-half hours on the left shoulder of a major highway with no confidence she knew what she was doing, a tow truck driver just as baffled as we were, and three kids who needed to go to the bathroom.

We had developed a deep and profound relationship with the supervisor by the time we received word of AAA's final solution to our situation . Over the course of at least six conversations we had laughed, cried, struggled through conflict, and argued passionately.

GETTING HOME

Short after 10:00pm, we were told a flatbed truck with a cab large enough to carry all five of us had been sent for. In the meantime, a smaller flatbed was coming to move us off the highway and bring us to the relative safety of the Knightdale Walmart parking lot. Split between the two tow trucks, we rode to Walmart and waited for the big flatbed to arrive.

We pulled out of Knightdale with our van and entire family spot on 11:00pm. Along the way, Ryan from AAA called to ask if we were satisfied with the service we had received. As you might imagine, I had quite a few recommendations on how they could have handled our case better.

After getting dropped off at our service station of choice, and thanks to Senior Awesome's parents who met us there, we made it home with all of our belongings at half past twelve -- a mere fifteen-and-a-half hours after leaving New York. We were exhausted, angry, grimy, and ready to fall into bed. All we wanted was a good night's sleep, but AAA must have had other ideas because Ryan called us again at 1:30am to do a follow up survey.

Apparently AAA missed its calling. It would have made a lovely wake-up service.



© 2012 Mark Feggeler

Cup o' Joe

I'm pretty sure we were heading up to New York for cousin Betsy's wedding when the coffee drama unfolded.

I don't drink coffee. Having never acquired a taste for brown water that tastes like bitter, burnt beans, the whole coffee craze that overtakes most people when they graduate from adolescence to adulthood passed me by without a second glance.

And then there's the problem with it being hot. I'm already finagling with the thermostat to maintain a domestic climate as cold as humanly tolerable, so the last thing I need is to gulp down a mug of 110-degree toilet water that'll raise my core temperature and make me break out in a full-body flop sweat. Iced vanilla lattes are the closest I'll ever get, and that's only because they're 70 degrees colder than coffee and taste like super-sweetened vanilla. When I need a jolt of caffeine, I reach for a Diet Coke.

But on that day when we started our 10-hour drive to New York, I thought it would be a great idea to try and behave like other adults and carry along a mug of strong coffee. I had stopped at Breugger's Bagels a few days earlier and purchased their refillable travel mug, which seemed like a great deal at the time. As we passed through Raleigh, I declared it necessary to stop at Breugger's to pick up bagels to nosh and top off my fancy new Breugger's travel mug.

Breugger's idea of
a travel mug.

Two problems: (1) Regardless of how much I try to convince myself it is the drink of choice for discerning adults, and no matter how many packets of Equal and spoonfuls of flavored creamer I mix into it, I don't like coffee; and (2) Breugger's Bagels' idea of a travel mug was something only slightly smaller than a whiskey barrel with a handle. I knew the mug would pose a problem from the moment I bought it, but I had already paid for it and was stuck with the prospect of making it work, whether or not I believed it could.

With a full barrel of coffee and a couple bagels to go, we walked back to the car to head off on our trip. My Lovely Wife, for whatever reason, was holding the travel mug when she dropped herself into the front passenger seat. As she landed, coffee sloshed and splattered out of the small hole in the lid and sprayed all over her white jeans shorts. Vociferous disgruntlement ensued in the form of clearly stated declarations decrying the poor design of the travel mug and the nonsensical behavior of a coffee-hating person suddenly requiring a vat of hot coffee.

A good half hour was lost trying to figure out whether or not the shorts could be saved before we finally found ourselves toodling north along US1 in a very quiet -- some might say seething -- state. Because the gargantuan Breugger's travel mug did not fit in any of the cup holders, I decided to hide it out of site of My Lovely Wife on the floor between my feet, which was a great place for it when the car was not in a state of motion, but wasn't so great once my right foot had to wander off to work the pedals.

Less than a mile up the road, at one of the first stoplights to which we came, the stupidity of the situation hit me full force as the mug tipped over, leaned like a fallen tree against my left leg, and swiftly poured a torrent of hot coffee into my shoe. I quickly pulled into the nearest gas station, threw the car into park, bolted out of my seat, and unceremoniously chucked the mug in the nearest trash can.

Ever since then, I've stuck to Diet Coke. Not only doesn't it splatter willy nilly on white shorts, or turn my socks brown, or make My Lovely Wife cranky, I actually like it.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Sexy Green Car

I dropped Our Daughter off at school today for driver's ed.

BEWARE!
This kid will be
driving soon.

It's difficult to comprehend she's almost old enough to get her license. I'm not the kind of guy who panics much about the aging process, but that doesn't mean I don't get smacked between the eyes every now and then by the realization I'm fewer years away from being a first time grandfather than I am to being a first time father. Well, at least halfway there, maybe. We'll have to see what the future holds.

Seems like yesterday I was sitting in an auditorium at East Meadow High School on Long Island listening to our two instructors drone on about traffic safety and hoping desperately not to be assigned to the tremendously obese instructor for the actual driving portion of the class. I don't recall his name, but I've never forgotten how he hiked his pants up under his moobs in an attempt to cover his belly. Sure enough, I ended up assigned to his group. Because of his girth, the front bench seat of the driver's ed vehicle had to be rolled all the way back, making it nearly impossible for me to reach the pedals. I have no idea how the short kids in the group even managed to get the car in gear.

That was twenty-eight years ago, and now it's Our Daughter's turn.

She must already be dreaming about that perfect first car. A fashion statement to match her nails and cell phone cover, a status symbol to declare her position in the "Lord of the Flies" pecking order of high school, the purchase of her first car could require countless hours of online research, test drives and color matching. Luckily for her, no such investment of time and energy need be made. The solution to her problem sits safely in our garage.

For years, I've joked with Our Daughter that when the time came for her to drive she would inherit my Toyota Echo. Her response, even when the reality of driving was a far off distant dream?

"No way!"

Admittedly, the Echo is not a sexy car. It's small, stick, and has that odd centered dash that took some getting used too but which I now really enjoy. It didn't come with power steering, a cd player, or even a clock. It could never be a roadtrip party vehicle because there are only two doors, meaning back seat passengers have to climb in and out like clowns at the circus. There are no leather seats, no electric windows or mirror controls. The air-conditioning system is barely more potent than hanging ice cubes from the rearview mirror. And last week it clocked its 190,000th mile. Oh, I almost forgot, the dark green paint job is marred by a decade of attacks by bikes, balls, bats and a battery of assorted childhood weaponry.

But it's been paid off for six years and gets forty miles to the gallon -- city driving! And if she abuses it, forgets to change the oil (as I frequently did with my first car), or chooses to blanket the poor thing with bumper stickers, what's the loss? It's not like the car is a hot classic with collectors clamoring to outbid each other for it. Even Toyota stopped manufacturing it after only a few years and replaced it with the Yaris. The Yaris!!!

And so, Our Daughter has a hard reality to face. Sometimes the liberties of a free society come at a cost. In this case, that cost might very well be a pound of pride paid each morning she pulls that uncontestedly unsexy green car into the high school parking lot.



© 2012 Mark Feggeler

Pee in a Cup?

That last hour of a long drive can be the greatest test of one's stamina. Take today, for example.

Two-hundred-eighty miles from Pinehurst to DC -- roughly six hours total if you allow for a little traffic. Stop in Roanoke Rapids for a quick chicken sandwich, waffle fries, and a Diet Coke. Upon realizing the Diet Coke was decaffienated, walk across the parking lot to Starbucks for a grande skinny iced vanilla latte.

Now I'm five hours into a six-hour trip, sipping at the watery remnants of vanilla-flavored coffee, and I'm starting to get that feeling. You know what I'm talking about. That feeling.

That feeling like my stomach is floating up into my lungs.

That feeling like one poorly timed pothole and my car will immediately smell like a reststop urinal.

That feeling like I really need a hollow leg, or a catheter, or an adult diaper.

Does it help that it's been raining the entire freakin' trip? No, it doesn't.

But I don't want to pull off for a pit stop, and not just because I'm now only 45 minutes from my destination and the prospect of a proper bathroom. Do you know how many cars and trucks I've passed? After all the work I've done to dodge and weave around the mixture of maniacs and fogies traveling Interstate 95, the thought of dropping back behind even one of them is profoundly depressing.

Only thirty minutes to go and the pressure is building. I'm reminded of a time when the boys were young, maybe three or four, and we were traveling home from a family vacation. We were halfway along one of those rural stretches of road devoid of any public facilities when the boys declared their need to pee.

In case you are unaware, the bladder of a young child is an undpredictable creature that is easily underestimated. It holds significantly more quantities of liquid than seems physically possible given the diminutive size of its owner, and when it reaches maximum capacity there is little-to-no warning before the emergency release valve opens.

Being the kind of parents who believe children urinating on the shoulder of a rural highway is neither cute nor appropriate, we employed the only decent option available to us -- Snapple bottles. Hey, Snapple always promotes all-natural ingredients, right? What could be more natural than toddler pee?

Only five minutes remaining on my trip to DC. I'm so close to the hotel, but the pressure is almost unbearable. You know, that empty Starbucks cup is looking mighty convenient...



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Life In a Yahtzee Cup

Ka-chik. Ka-chick. Ka-chik.
Chik-a-chik-a-chik-a-chik-a-chik!
Ka-chik.

When you're in the final stretch of a 9-hour drive from North Carolina to Florida, you've either achieved a Road Warrior level of zen, or every last possible petty annoyance is blossoming into a full-on assault on your weary psyche.

Ka-chik. Ka-chick. Ka-chik.

The German is a lovely boy, in many ways the sweetest-natured of our three sweet-natured children. One time, when he and his brother were very young, the Italian was crying because he had not behaved well enough to earn a stamp on the back of his hand from their gymnastics instructor. Did the German gloat and flaunt his stamp? No. He discreetly licked his finger and tried to wipe off his stamp, so his brother wouldn't feel bad. You can't pick'em any sweeter than that.

Chik-a-chik-a-chik-a-chik-a-chik!

All the way along the tedious drive, an hour to reach Interstate 95 followed by 488 miles straight down the eastern seaboard of North America, our children behaved better than one could hope for. They watched movies, listened to their iPods, played games, conversed, stared out the windows. Not until the very end did the Italian begin to come unglued, but then weren't we all? We all wanted to stretch our legs and vent some pent up energy. Yes, the children have been wonderful.

Ka-chik. Ka-chick.

That noise? It's nothing. Tell yourself it's nothing. If you ignore it, it will drown in the hum of tires barreling down the road and wind rushing over the van. The German really is a lovely boy.

Ka-chik.

Such a lovely boy...

Ka-chik. Ka-chik.

After eight hours in the van with another hour ahead of him, he deserves an innocent distraction. He doesn't even realize he's doing it. Look at him. He's staring at whichever movie is playing on the tiny screen that pops out of the ceiling, listening intently to the dialogue through the headphones that seal him off from the rest of the world. It doesn't seem to be bothering anyone else, so don't let it bother you.

Ka-chik. Chik-a-chik-a-chik-a-chik-a-chik-a-chik-a-chik-a-chik!

Oh, please make it stop! If he doesn't stop rattling that plastic container of Menthos gum, I'm going to lose the few remaining drops of reason keeping me focused on the pending joy of the family vacation we have planned for the next few days.

Why doesn't he eat the gum? Then there wouldn't be any demonic little pellets to rattle like dried beans in maraca! Why would anyone turn chewing gum, innocently soft chewing gum, noiseless and unoffensive chewing gum, into candy-coated castanet innards? Who could have pioneered such an evil scheme against the senses?

Ka-chik. Ka-chick. Ka-chik.
Chik-a-chik-a-chik-a-chik-a-chik!
Ka-chik.

Damn you, Chiclets!



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Please Move Over, Mr. Pokey

This past Saturday, my Lovely Wife and I left the comforts of house and home behind to travel to Orlando with our children.

Starting off from within North Carolina meant two-lane roads until we reached Interstate 95 at South of the Border, the tourist trap roadside fireworks stand that developed at some point in the not-too-distant past into a mini-carnival slash strip club mini-mall just over the border into South Carolina. At that point, you graduate to a four-lane highway with speed limits ranging up to 70 miles per hour.

In South Carolina, just as in North Carolina, slow drivers seem to understand their responsibility to keep to the right. Should they forget, all you have to do is start creeping up behind them. They catch sight of you in the rearview mirror, flip on their blinker, and move over to the right lane.

Halfway through Georgia, this understanding seemed to be slipping away. You know what I mean, don't you?

Pretend you're me, zipping along at a perfectly reasonable speed of say, 75 or 85 miles per hour. You come up behind someone in the fast lane who thinks maintaining speed limit is fast, so they refuse to move over.

"Put on your blinker!" you silently scream inside your head. They don't.

"Move over!!!" you add, again screamed inside your head but possibly muttered under your breath. Again, they don't.

After 12 miles of being boxed in by the driver in the fast lane who is keeping perfect pace with the semi in the center lane, you seize an opportunity to shift two lanes over to the right lane, pass the semi at about 90 miles per hour, pray there are no troopers watching, and eventually shift back to the fast lane ahead of Mr. Pokey and reduce speed to a reasonable 80.

By the time you reach the Florida border, every third driver is related to Mr. Pokey. Just so you know, Mr. Pokey is not always old, or a man. Any driver can be Mr. Pokey.

I would love to add Mr. Pokey as a character in every driver education program across the country. Have a voice kick in like Goliath the dog from the old clay-mation kids' show Davey and Goliath.

"What are you doin', Davey?" he would say.

"I'm trying to be a safe driver, Goliath," Davey would answer. "If I drive at speed limit in the fast lane then it will force everyone behind me to drive safely, too!"

"Oh, I don't think that's such a good idea, Davey," Goliath would advise. "Nobody likes a Mr. Pokey.""

"Why Goliath? Is that because trying to force other people to do what I think is right and safe might actually backfire and cause an accident because people aren't expecting someone to drive so slow in the fast lane?"

"No, Davey. It's a bad idea because that chubby, pale guy in the Honda mini-van is going to ram us!"



ⓒ 2010 Mark Feggeler

It's remarkable how little one has to say about anything after a day spent driving an eight-hour round trip, six of those hours with a relative stranger trying to make small talk in a very loud car. While my driving companion was pleasant and did his fair share to keep conversation interesting, the lags started appearing around hour four. Being a business trip, all work-related topics were exhausted within the first hour. Family, parenting, vacations, food, travel -- all of the safe topics -- followed in order, both of us consciously drawing them out to avoid the inevitable.

Hour 4. This is the point at which, if traveling with a familiar friend or family member, a long and happy silence would kick in. Music volume increases; minds shut down; scenery passes. The conversation has an opportunity to recharge, possibly restarting with an off-the-wall statement or question related to some shared experience.

With a stranger, no matter how skilled at conversation, this typically does not happen. Firstly, a pause in the conversation becomes awkward, as though we are telling each other: "I have entirely lost interest in speaking with you." To avoid a potential breach of etiquette, we both draw up meaningless topics not worthy of discussion just to avoid the pause, or we rehash bits of conversation from previous hours. Secondly, we have no shared experiences to discuss, not really anyway. Despite both being parents, I don't know his kids and he doesn't know mine. I don't want to hear more than a handful of stories about his kids and he doesn't want to hear more than a handful about mine. We both eat food. We both have favorite foods. But beyond knowing he likes an ethnically diverse menu and I prefer Italian cuisine, we really don't care too much about each other's dietary preferences. Besides, for a guy that says he enjoys foods from all continents, so far he's eaten only chicken caesar salad two days running for lunch.

By the time I leave him at his front door I am spent. I have nothing left mentally for the wife and kids and it shows.