He Said/She Said: The Chauffeur

We packed up the car last Saturday, and headed up to my sister-in-law's for my nephew's birthday party. The ride takes almost an hour, so we strapped in the Ladies, threw on the DVD player (the Lady has switched allegiances from Wubbzy to Barbie--it is a totally different sort of hell), and started to drive.

I settled in at shotgun and opened my latest issue of Women's Health magazine. My husband chortled (in what I perceived to be a very condescending way) and told me that I should write a blog post on the fact that when we get into the car and I open a magazine that he becomes my chauffeur.

Well sweetheart, here is your chance to tell your side of the story. Even though this post is titled He Said/She Said, I am going first, because 1. it is my blog and 2. I want to.

She Said:

A lot of people can't read in the car. I can. A lot of people have free time during their day to sit back and leisurely flip through the pages of their favorite magazine. I don't.

Gone are the days where I can sit peacefully on the beach and digest my US Weekly, followed by a Life&Style, finished off by Star Magazine. All the while, studying the minute differences in the same exact photos published by each mag and living vicariously through the starlets as they romp in St. Tropez and drink coffee while picking up their dry cleaning. Oh Stars--you are just like US!

Now I take my free time when I can get it. The car rides, where you drive, are ideal for stealing away a bit of time for myself. The Ladies are strapped in and safe and I can focus on just the words in front of me.

The car rides, where you drive, are also occasionally, more frightening than I care to admit. To say you are an aggressive driver is putting it mildly. Although, I trust you to get us to our destination safely, I would prefer to bury my head in a magazine and not watch as you weave your way through traffic, curse out other drivers (I dare say my readers have NOT forgotten "fuck you doing?"), and focus more on what another driver is doing three lanes over and five cars ahead of us, then the car, breaking, in front of us.

I will admit that my US Weekly sometimes adds to your distracted driving, when I catch you looking at the photos as I flip the pages, however, this isn't a big enough deal to keep me from reading it while you drive.

I am just trying to take advantage of a little bit of downtime during the drive. Is that so wrong?

love and kisses,

Miss Daisy

He said:

I am not nearly as gifted a writer as my better half, but since I asked for this, here goes...

I have given my wife a hard time in the past about her penchant for reading a magazine when we go on a “long” car ride…and when I say long, that pretty much means anything over 15 minutes. She might as well say, “to the beach house Wadsworth” and close the Plexiglas divider between the two of us.

This used to be not such a big deal, but the Lady has taken to watching her portable DVD player on any such car ride. And, she takes after her father when it comes to the volume at which she watches TV and reciting the lines from all her movies. So, it’s useless to put on the radio. I basically drive the car and point out the inadequacies of the other drivers on the road. I’m there to provide my family with transportation to and from whatever our final destination may be. I feel like, once we arrive, I should stay with the car and make sure it is washed and waxed. Of course that’s after I carry all the bags (or what not) into our destination. This really isn’t a big deal; I’m more than happy to provide my family with a quick and safe ride…although my wife may disagree about the safe part. I will fully admit that on the rare occasion that my wife does drive, I’d spend the entire ride wondering why she went a certain way or how she could possibly get stuck behind a guy going 50 MPH in the left lane. But the other day; we were having a conversation for the first 5 minutes of our ride, and then all of a sudden I look over and she’s reading a magazine. Apparently, I didn’t understand that the conversation was over. I was boring the crap out of her with my inane dialogue and she had to turn to the pages of Women’s Health to save herself.

It’s sad to say, but I wish I could more consistently provide her reason for the ear to ear smile she has when on Thursday evening, after packing up the car and kids for a jaunt to New London, she returns from the mailbox with her US Magazine. I then know that she will enjoy her ride and have plenty to talk about with the other clan members once we reach Park Street. And should the fine workers from our government mail service not deliver that tabloid fodder, watch out, hell hath no fury like a woman denied her celebrity gossip.

I know my wife does more that I can possibly imagine, and I should not begrudge her this little luxury. I know that I am not the most gifted conversationalist, but next time give me a heads up that its time for a little magazine break. I’ll gladly go back to critiquing the poor driving around me or listening to the Lady signing along with Beyonce or Barbie.

Your faithful servant - Hoak

She (obviously) has one more thing to say:

I want to point out that the conversation we were having was about Avatar, a movie he had watched the night before and I hadn't seen. Riveting.