Driving Mr. Daisy

Today I read this in the BYU student newspaper police beat:

Oct. 7 Officers responded to a possible fight at the ITB. A couple was arguing about who would drive the car home. The woman was upset because her husband wanted her to drive. No crime was committed.

I had to laugh. What sort of man argues with wife over who's going to drive home? What sort of man would willingly abdicate the seat of power that men throughout the ages have claimed as their macho right? What sort of man would commit this heinous crime against manliness? I will tell you what sort of man would do this: my husband.

This newspaper blurb reminded me about a short period of time after we got married. Although early in our relationship Austin always drove because, hey, it was his car, soon after we got married we went through this phase where he would want me to drive him around while he lounged about in the passenger seat. He didn't care what people might think about his masculinity; he figured that the joy of being chauffeured about was worth it. For a while it was like we were in an ongoing episode of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" with me featured as a lowly chauffeur who was constantly annoying her employee. Austin's lounginess was generally negated by the tensity brought on by watching my bad driving, so this idyllic period soon ended, I was fired, and I gratefully renewed my claim on the shotgun seat.

Last week Austin decided he would give his convenient chauffeur another chance. It didn't go too well. He's mellowed out with his passenger-seat driving tendencies, but I've grown more assertive in the seat of power, so the upshot of all this was that he ended up getting chauffeured to a pumpkin patch, which was not the ordered destination. I got my passenger seat back, (hurray!) but didn't foresee my quick demotion to pumpkin rearranger after the pumpkins started rolling around in the trunk. (darn.) However, I jumped out on the side of the road and bravely began hauling the dirt-encrusted pumpkins, thankful that Austin had picked the earthworms off before we put them in the car. I didn't even mind too much that my black shirt had now taken on a browner, dustier hue. At least I had my seat back.

You know, I think something about getting older makes you care less about appearances than you used to. Today I was out driving and saw an old guy shoot across the street right in front of me wearing roller skates and sporting ski poles. And just so he wouldn't be overlooked, he was also sporting a fluorescent yellow vest.

And speaking of overlooked, I just read an interesting article about some new technology that researchers are using to look through walls. Just thought I'd throw that in.