Dodging can get you killed

I thought, for the weekend, I would share a short story to make you smile. What I learned about the dangers of avoiding discipline.

The car is rolling down the highway, at speed. The engine is purring. It's hard to imagine how fast we are going from the inside of the car. My mom is driving. The landscape moves by on either side and a tall seat separates my brother and I from our mom.

We are happy in the isolated bubble of backseat, we don't know the terror that is a few minutes away.

Justin crossed "the Line" to my my side of the seat. I push his hand back and the game begins. I'm annoyed, he's working to further annoy me. Soon the driver is annoyed. She is telling us something, but we're not listening. We are fighting. Hands pushing. Shouting. Maybe a little kicking.

The voices of the three of us are going up and up, the speed of the car may have increased and I have started to become aware that punishment may be at hand. My senses are starting to sharpen.

Then it happens. The left hand shifts to the top of the wheel, the right hand takes up the "I'm going to smack you position.". The sides of the battle have changed. My brother and I watch the hand moving, in my mind, in slow motion. My mom stands on the gas pedal, smacking hand flailing, my brother and I clinging to the door trying to dodge.

It's hard to drive when you are crawling over the seat to kill your kids while you have only one hand on the wheel. I'm pretty sure a grim reaper waved at me from a nearby car.

Smack! That one hurt. I need to be less distracted. My mom moves into the side to side motion, swing from the my brother to I, the car swinging right then left with her. I don't know for sure that she crossed lanes of traffic, but in my mind I can see the trees beside the road get closer and further away. I was dodging, but the swinging was getting more frantic.

Did the second hand leave the wheel so that she could turn around and get to both of us? I don't think so, but perhaps fear has robbed me of that memory. Either way, when I look back I realize something, something for the kids.

Children, when your parents have decided to administer corporal punishment in a moving vehicle, just take it. While you may be crafty enough to get away from the swinging hand, your odds of getting killed in a traffic accident go up considerably.

Note: I have been directed to let you know that some of this story may be "enhanced". Specifically, you should not infer from this that my Mom is a bad driver. She only needs one overreaching hand on the wheel steer and the eyes in the back of her head work just fine for navigating.