Mark and the girls are on their way back home.
A long drive. Ten hours.
I hadn’t heard from them, so I called Mark’s cell phone. Just to say hello.
He picks up, “Hello?”
I am not even able to greet him, because I hear screaming in the background, “Daddy! You know the rules! You are not allowed to talk on the phone while you are driving! Give me the phone, Daddy! Right this instant! Give me the phone.”
That would be Maj.
Duh.
Mark says, “I am passing the phone to Maj. Love you, babe.”
And then there is Maj, “Why do you call Daddy’s phone when you know that he is driving? Call my phone. I’m not driving. Geez, Mother.”
Snort!
“Hey, Maj! How’s the trip going?”
“Fine. Kallan is eating way too many snacks, and she has been watching movies the whole time. The whole time, Mother. Do you know how many movies that is?”
“Yes, well . . . You know how antsy your sister gets in the car on long road trips. Do you really want to take away her movies?”
“No, she would just annoy me. But still, Mother . . . seriously? Ten hours of movies on the way down and then ten more hours of movies on the way back? Doesn’t she have homework or something she should be doing?”
Snort!
“Listen, Maj. I’m not there. Daddy’s in charge. So if Daddy said that Kallan could watch endless movies? That’s Daddy’s decision. If she has homework she didn’t do, that’s her problem. Not yours.”
“Whatever. DADDY, YOU ARE DRIVING TOO FAST! I CAN SEE HOW FAST YOU ARE DRIVING, AND YOU ARE DRIVING TOO FAST!”
I hear Mark’s voice, all reasonable, “I am driving with traffic, Maj. The speed limit is 65. I am fine.”
Maj speaks calmly into my ear, “Hold on, Mother.”
And then I hear her yell, “DADDY! THE ROAD IS SLIPPERY AND THERE ARE HAZARDOUS CONDITIONS! SLOW DOWN TO BE SAFE!”
I laugh, “Maj, leave Daddy alone. Stop yelling at him.”
She returns to the phone, “I am not yelling at him. I am informing him. Not the same thing.”
Oh my god, how happy am I to not be in this car?
Maj again, “You want to talk to Kallan? She’s going to be mad at me if I don’t hand her the phone. But guess what? She is also going to be mad about having to pause her movie. So whatever. KALLAN!”
And then there is Kallan, with a sleepy little-girl voice, “Hi, Mommy.”
“Hey, baby girl! Where are you guys right now? About halfway?”
“I don’t know, Mommy. We’re in the middle of nowhere, seems like. We’ve been in the middle of nowhere for a long time. There is a lot of nowhere.”
“It’s about time for lunch, right?”
“Yeah, but Mommy? In the middle of nowhere? There are no places for lunch. Daddy always manages to be in the middle of nowhere when it’s time for lunch. I’m hungry.”
“Do you guys still have snacks?”
“Yeah, we have snacks.”
Maj yells from the background, “Yeah, we have snacks, but Kallan had way more than her fair share of them. She should not be having any more snacks. What she needs are some vegetables.”
Kallan whispers into the phone, “Maj is still very bossy, by the way.”
“Yes, I can hear that.”
Maj is in the background again, “PUT ON THE WIPERS! DADDY! PUT THEM ON! IF I CAN’T SEE, YOU CAN’T SEE! WHAT IF THERE ARE HAZARDS? PUT ON THE WIPERS!”
Kallan giggles, “I miss you, Mommy.”
“YOU ARE GOING TO DRIVE THROUGH THAT PUDDLE? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? WHY ARE WE RIGHT NEXT TO THIS TRUCK? MOTHER DOESN’T LIKE US TO DRIVE NEXT TO BIG TRUCKS.”
“Hey, Kallan? I miss you guys. Can’t wait for you to get home. I’ll see you tonight, OK?”
“OK, Mommy. Bye.”
Before she hangs up, I hear Maj again, “I AM NOT GOING TO LOOK FOR PLACES TO EAT LUNCH UNLESS YOU MOVE TO THE RIGHT. YOU CAN’T SWERVE US OVER ACROSS LANES IF I SEE A MCDONALD’S. GET TO THE RIGHT, DADDY!”
And then Mark, “Maj, just look ahead a little bit. I’m not going to go flying off the freeway like a fool. Have a little faith, babe.”
And then Maj, “FINE. IF YOU DON’T . . .”
And then the connection is broken.
Oh my god.
Oh my god, I miss them.
What that car needs? Is the cone of silence. Absolutely needs the cone of silence.
Either that? Or Maj needs to come with a mute button. Hehehe
Mark and I have discussed a cone of silence.
What we really want?
Is one of those soundproof dividers like they have in limousines!
Wouldn’t that be awesome?
Swoon!
Oh! I sooooooooo want one of those. I used to think I wanted 2 of them – 1 to block the kids from each other then 1 to block them from the front seat but now… I’m thinking just one.
I soooooo want one….
M
WHY DON’T MINIVANS COME WITH THIS OPTION?
Who do we see about making this happen?
I dunno but seriously – pass their name on when you get someone to do it!
Don’t bogart the peace and quiet sanity!
M
Snort!
You said bogart . . .
I haven’t heard that in a while.
Hee hee!
Kris – just saw a commercial about an Oddessy minivan – the whole concept of the commercial was “What does a 5 hr trip in a minivan sound like?” – it was quiet in there.. really quiet.
They had no plastic windows separated the minivan off but I think the children and possibly the parents were partially sedated. NO ONE wants to spend 5 hours trapped in a minivan with 2 siblings.. NO ONE! Seriously. Not voluntarily anyway.. that’s just a big bowl of wrong.
I laughed for a solid 5 mins.. the kids think I have finally tripped into fully insane but I remembered this post and Maj’s constant “helpful” critique of the driving and laughed some more..
Silence in a minivan?!?! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!! They rented strangers for the whole commercial not an actual family because silence for a drive to the grocery store isn’t silent.
M
ps- yup, said Bogart… some parts of me will never leave the 80′s.
I have seen those advertisements!
Fucking liars.
Or possibly, those people are drugged.
That would explain a lot.
Omg! I am so glad I never will have to drive Maj anywhere. Mark is a saint. Now I know why Kellan always wants to kill her sister lol.
Thanks for the laugh :)
Mark is a saint.
Way more patient than I am in the car.
Way more patient.
Hee hee!
My daughter was in a minor car accident with her grandfather once. For a solid five years afterward, she was very Maj-like in the car. *sigh*
Of course, she now drives and quite well, I might add. So maybe her abundance of caution is a good thing? But damn, was it exasperating.
As nice as all of that alone time is, it is nice when they come home, isn’t it?
Maj has never been in a car accident.
Except for that one time when I sort of drove the car through the garage door.
Ahem.
But other than that? No accidents.
Maj gets stressed.
Happy sighs that they are coming home.
And that I do not have to travel with them.
Hee hee!
You only miss them because you’re not in that car!!! Haha.
I was very “back seat driver-ish” growing up. Some might say I still am. But seriously? If you ever rode anywhere with my dad…you’d be a back seat driver too!
The minivan has two seats in the middle row.
But we used to have a car that had three spots in that row.
Maj was not allowed to sit in the middle seat of that row. Sitting there, staring right out the front windshield?
She would scream about everything as we drove. Completely panicked we were going to crash if she didn’t warn us of the dangers ahead.
She was four.
She is still the same person.
Louder, maybe.
But the same.
Oh, Maj….
I love her more and more with each post.
Maj is fabulous.
Tiring, but fabulous.
Wow, I’m glad I’m not in that car!
Maj is a born leader, yes?
Kallan has the right idea, snacks and movies are obviously needed on a long car trip.
Mark obviously has superhuman powers of calmness and patience.
Maj is a born leader, but she is the sort of leader to incite angry riots among her people.
Kallan is HELLISH in the car without movies and snacks. A drive longer than 3 hours? Movies and snacks are required.
And Mark?
Is a better parent than I am in these sorts of situations.
Of course, I would never agree to drive the girls for ten hours all by myself.
There would be a lot of screaming and yelling and crying.
I would be the one tantrumming, in case that wasn’t clear.
Seriously.
Just reading this made me want to pull over and give Maj some Benadryl. :) What funny girls you have- and a patient baby daddy, too. Wishing you the best reunion.
Maj takes Benadryl!
For her allergies.
So, this is Maj all calm and drugged.
Snort!
Maj is too funny! But if I were Mark, I would have told her to mind her own business and do her homework a long time ago. Or threw a HUGE tantrum myself. My husband knows better than to say anything when I drive but I catch him all the time trying to brake while sitting in the passenger seat. Annoys the hell out of me!
You may be certain that Maj has done her homework.
And Maj has been told perhaps eight million times to mind her own business.
She appears to believe that everything about our family (and more specifically her sister) is her business.
Hee hee!
And just so you know?
Mark is the worst passenger in the history of the world.
I hate driving him anywhere.
Ack!
Maj might want to consider a career in law enforcement. Alternatively, she might want to become the Prime Minister of Singapore, so she could enforce the littering laws and perhaps ban some additional behaviors, such as balloon butting…
Maj would like to be Queen of the World.
How do we make that happen?
Think the answer to that is just get out of her way, SNORT!
You are all geniusy!
Yes.
Obviously.
I love Kallan’s whispered truth: “Maj is still very bossy, by the way.”
Um, that would be yes.
And then this, from Mark: “…Have a little faith, babe.”
Sigh.
How hard it must be to be Maj, the only sensible one in the family, the only one aware of how truly dangerous the world is, how everyone’s very existence rests on a knife edge’s balance, and yet no one heeds her warnings…
That last bit about Maj?
Sigh.
Yes, those are Maj’s thoughts exactly.
It is difficult to be Maj, I think.
The rest of us are all careless and giggling.
I’m sort of like Maj in the car. I try not to be. I’m much better than I used to be. But I like to be the driver instead of the passenger. I don’t like to be in someone else’s hands. That says a lot about me and my ability to trust.
I wish Maj would let go just a little bit and enjoy being a kid more. She worries to much and I worry for her…that she will end up like me…an adult who worries to much.
Maj worries.
She thinks she worries the perfect amount.
We are working on her.
Sigh.
How old was Maj when she was born? I’d say about 70.
I would put her closer to 30.
Seriously.
She was bossy from the start.
Kris, you are funnier than hell.
And I’ve heard? That hell is pretty damn funny.
Seriously though? You have a gift for making me feel like I am right there in the room while the story is happening.
I want to cheer on Mark as he continues to drive despite Maj’s admonitions. I’d be on the side of the road laughing so hard that tears would be streaming down my face. Oh, wouldn’t she love that!
I can hear the panic in Maj’s voice as she yells at him to put on the wipers, “PUT ON THE WIPERS! DADDY! PUT THEM ON! IF I CAN’T SEE, YOU CAN’T SEE!
Fuckin’ A. That is good stuff right there.
I can hear Kallan’s despair at the fact that they’ve been in the middle of nowhere for a long time. “There is a lot of nowhere.”
What she needs are some vegetables.
Snort.
Oh, I love you.
Love you so much.
Come back.
Swoon!
I think Maj may be my long lost child..this is EXACTLY how I talk to my hubs on road trips! Heehee!
Didn’t you post about a road trip with your husband that went badly?
That was you, right?
Hee hee!
Wow they take their soap box racing seriously. 20 hours in a car. I hope they had fun on their trip.
Just so you know?
They drove down to Northern California for this weekend of racing.
They stayed an extra day to meet up with a bunch of their friends.
So yes, it was a long ride.
But there was more to it than just racing.