Conversation in the Car

There are only three miles that separate our house from my mom’s house. But these three miles often give me and the girls the best chance of the day to really connect and catch up after spending over nine hours apart.

Sometimes, not having to make eye contact makes conversation a little easier. Sometimes, we can just be silly and unwind during that drive.

Other times, though, the conversation is just awful.

Scene: The three of us in the car, two miles from home. I’m speaking in a horrible accent reminiscent of the week I once spent in Brooklyn in the mid-90s. I ask, “You want I should make you some dinner when we get home?”

“Mom!” Alyssa laughs, “stop talking like that.”
“You know I never listen to you,” I retort, the accent still strong and very annoying, even to my own ears.
Catching a glimpse of something on the side of the road, my accent slips and I say, “Hey look, at that cat, he’s very orange. Oh…no, kitty don’t!”

I swerve into the other lane of the road because there is no oncoming traffic. But am unable to move my tires far enough that the darting cat can avoid them.

Thunk! The cat ran under my rear passenger tire.
“Oh crap!” I say, not really thinking, just reacting, “I smashed the kitty!”

Alyssa, horrified by the events of the past ten seconds, laughs at my little monologue, “Oh Mom! You…” She’s laughing, I think, because if she doesn’t, she’s going to cry. “You said, ‘Look at that cat, it’s orange…oh no!”

She wasn’t amused by the squishing of a cat, but she couldn’t stop laughing at my own reaction to it.

It’s not funny that that orange kitty ran under my tire. I feel awful about it. For the record, there are miles of fields and farm land between our house and my mom’s. I hope that cat was a field cat or someone’s barn cat, not some little kid’s pet.

It doesn’t make his death any better, except I can comfort myself that there isn’t some little kid running outside each night calling, “Peaches! Here kitty, kitty!” and getting no sweet orange cat running to him for dinner.

Damn, I feel awful about that poor orange kitty.