Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Here In My Car

Ed drove me to work today which afforded me the opportunity to do one of my favorite things….people watch. It amazes me how people are lured in to this false sense of privacy while they’re in their vehicles. In the 20 minutes we were in the car I saw:

o a man reading the news paper
o a man gingerly stroking his moustache, no doubt marveling at his manliness in that he can grow facial hair
o a woman talking on the phone and applying mascara
o several people in animated phone conversations
o a man shouting in to a walkie talkie style phone while holding a cigarette and steering with his other hand
o The DHL delivery guy attempting to light is cigarette while wearing his leather delivery gloves

As I was watching (and pointing and laughing in my mind) it occurred to me that people are probably doing the same thing to me on a daily basis. I too, for some reason, feel completely uninhibited when I’m in my car.

Here is a random sampling of the things you may see me doing on any number of (ok, probably most) days:

• Turning around frantically to make sure that I actually did drop both kids off at daycare
• Jamming to The Wiggles because it didn’t occur to me to change the CD after dropping the kids off
• Laughing hysterically at (and talking back to) Howard Stern
• Singing at the top of my lungs to either Meatloaf or The Monkees while pretending that I won a contest to be able to sing on stage with them because I know ALL of their lyrics
• Screwing around with my satellite radio (and not looking at the road) because I have horrible reception
• Filing through 100 CD’s (while not looking at the road) to find “the perfect one”
• Having my own animated phone conversation while trying to hide the fact that I’m even on the phone because I don’t have a hands free device.
• Running my fingers through my hair to determine whether or not I brushed it after my shower
• Sniffing my armpits to make sure I am properly deodorized
• And oh crap….did I brush my teeth? I really need to be more organized. I check out my teeth in the rear view mirror
• Trying to figure out how I am going to eat the pumpkin muffin from Starbuck’s that is full of cream cheese without making a huge mess
• Cleaning up the smeared cream cheese from said muffin from the side of my face

But you can’t see me anyway. Right?

7 comments:

Misty said...

OMG - I so totally do that thing where I frantically check to make sure the kids are not actually still in the car with me after I dropped them off at daycare. All the while with the terrible god-awful news stories in my head of people who have unknowingly left their children in the car?

*Shudder*

I may have to go look in my car right now just to make sure that they are not there. Horror of horrors.

LoriD said...

I CAN see you. And I'm laughing. :-P

Mommy Daisy said...

Me too. I do crazy things in the car. It is a funny phenomenon.

Nowheymama said...

I'm usually reaching back for food and toys the kids dropped.

misguidedmommy said...

and i would do anything for love...

Anonymous said...

i love people watching. possibly more than anything in the world. i even posted about it today!!

theflyingmum said...

Hahahahah! The Artist Formerly Known as TFH: can I use that, please!!!!????

Yes, the one-handed reach to either deliver or retrieve an object to or from Ben. Or twisting around and feeling with my fingers for the thing that he just dropped onto the floorboards.
And I usually see someone picking their nose. Really. It's like they think their car renders them invisible.