Happy Families Keep Their Mouths Shut
I think we’re a happy family. Happy families are unique in that they accept each other as they are. Sure, happy families have unhappy situations at times, but they plow through them and they keep going.
In our happy family, we’re all a little mental about saying the wrong thing to each other. This is because we all have said the wrong thing several times over the years and have had to go through the many demeaning contortions it takes to convince someone you didn’t really mean it. So we’re careful about what we say.
An example of the dynamic this has created just happened over the weekend. We were coming home from Texas, driving a 26-foot truck hauling a trailer with a car behind. As a result, we couldn’t back up without damaging the car.
My husband was loving driving the truck. He, not unlike many men, feels driving a large truck ultimately fulfills what he was created to do, which is…what? I don’t know what, but I’ve seen enough men glow at the wheel of a huge truck to know that something important is going on there.
My hubby also feels the way you get something done is to keep doing it until the skin peels off your knuckles and you drop to the ground in the fetal position from sheer exhaustion. Does this sound familiar?
As a result, we were driving down a dark road in New Mexico at two in the morning because we had set Cortes, Colorado, as our goal. Never mind that Cortes was still three hours away and that clearly we had overestimated the speed at which this baby was going to travel. Never mind that someone had actually said we’d eat dinner when we got to the motel! Can you believe that?
So, in as mature a way as possible, I said maybe we should stop at Shiprock, Arizona, a mere 85 miles away. And, in as mature a way as possible, Clay asked if I would rather break the cardinal rule of male driving, which is to turn around and go back to the place we just left and stay there.
Forgive me, but I said yes, I would rather turn around and go back. “Oh, the places you’ll go,” said Dr. Suess. And he was right.
We did turn around, right on to a muddy dirt road in the middle of nowhere, pitch dark, no lights or houses, puddles of water waiting to absorb us down to our hubcaps.
This is where I completely lost control of my senses. I was hungry, it was too late at night, and I can’t describe to you how sore my backside was from sitting on that truck seat.
I was so mad I almost levitated off the seat. Only years of practice kept me from bringing up everything I had ever imagined he had done wrong over the last 29 years of marriage. But he was going to drive down this road until he found a place for us to turn around. Or, more likely, until we were shot by joy-riding teenagers in a stolen car, hopped up on liquor and drugs. I was so upset I wanted to just get out and hide in the sage until I found something live to eat.
Then an odd thing happened. Just as I was about the launch into a long loud tirade on trust and my inability to place it anywhere near this truck, we were saved. Not by drunken teens, but actually by a drunken waitress on her way home from work. She’d finished up and had her free shot, actually her free shots. She happened to live at the end of this muddy dirt road. We could turn around a few feet ahead. What would the people think at that house? Oh, just that we were a bunch of crazy white people who had gotten lost on the rez.
I’m not sure why, but this completely renewed my faith. I make so many stupid mistakes, but I’m saved because I’m sweet and my guardian angel doesn’t want me to be killed. Now I feel my husband too will be saved from his stupid mistakes. It was a good lesson for me. We all make mistakes and can be saved.
I made that abundantly clear on the way back to the town we’d just left.
In our happy family, we’re all a little mental about saying the wrong thing to each other. This is because we all have said the wrong thing several times over the years and have had to go through the many demeaning contortions it takes to convince someone you didn’t really mean it. So we’re careful about what we say.
An example of the dynamic this has created just happened over the weekend. We were coming home from Texas, driving a 26-foot truck hauling a trailer with a car behind. As a result, we couldn’t back up without damaging the car.
My husband was loving driving the truck. He, not unlike many men, feels driving a large truck ultimately fulfills what he was created to do, which is…what? I don’t know what, but I’ve seen enough men glow at the wheel of a huge truck to know that something important is going on there.
My hubby also feels the way you get something done is to keep doing it until the skin peels off your knuckles and you drop to the ground in the fetal position from sheer exhaustion. Does this sound familiar?
As a result, we were driving down a dark road in New Mexico at two in the morning because we had set Cortes, Colorado, as our goal. Never mind that Cortes was still three hours away and that clearly we had overestimated the speed at which this baby was going to travel. Never mind that someone had actually said we’d eat dinner when we got to the motel! Can you believe that?
So, in as mature a way as possible, I said maybe we should stop at Shiprock, Arizona, a mere 85 miles away. And, in as mature a way as possible, Clay asked if I would rather break the cardinal rule of male driving, which is to turn around and go back to the place we just left and stay there.
Forgive me, but I said yes, I would rather turn around and go back. “Oh, the places you’ll go,” said Dr. Suess. And he was right.
We did turn around, right on to a muddy dirt road in the middle of nowhere, pitch dark, no lights or houses, puddles of water waiting to absorb us down to our hubcaps.
This is where I completely lost control of my senses. I was hungry, it was too late at night, and I can’t describe to you how sore my backside was from sitting on that truck seat.
I was so mad I almost levitated off the seat. Only years of practice kept me from bringing up everything I had ever imagined he had done wrong over the last 29 years of marriage. But he was going to drive down this road until he found a place for us to turn around. Or, more likely, until we were shot by joy-riding teenagers in a stolen car, hopped up on liquor and drugs. I was so upset I wanted to just get out and hide in the sage until I found something live to eat.
Then an odd thing happened. Just as I was about the launch into a long loud tirade on trust and my inability to place it anywhere near this truck, we were saved. Not by drunken teens, but actually by a drunken waitress on her way home from work. She’d finished up and had her free shot, actually her free shots. She happened to live at the end of this muddy dirt road. We could turn around a few feet ahead. What would the people think at that house? Oh, just that we were a bunch of crazy white people who had gotten lost on the rez.
I’m not sure why, but this completely renewed my faith. I make so many stupid mistakes, but I’m saved because I’m sweet and my guardian angel doesn’t want me to be killed. Now I feel my husband too will be saved from his stupid mistakes. It was a good lesson for me. We all make mistakes and can be saved.
I made that abundantly clear on the way back to the town we’d just left.
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