Driving Me Crazy!

Since Jack pulled his back out we made a ride into the North Georgia Mountains where my brother-in-law is a renowned chiropractor. No kidding, many people testify that he saved them from a life of pain. He even healed a little dachshund that, after being hit by a car, had two tiny wheels hoisting up its hind quarters. Wheels be gone! after only a few sessions and that little wiener dog is as good as new.

So Jack decides to make the drive up with his bad back. Yes, he has to have control of the wheel, even in extreme pain, which would be okay for a human being, but not for a being from a planet far, far away called Velocity. I’ve seen grown, burly men stagger from his vehicle with perspiration stains to their belt loops gasping, “Never again!” I view this as a testimony to my bravery and a defense to my verbal pleas to remain alive.

Picture yourself hurtling around a slim mountainous avenue at three times the safe m.p.h., and as your driver points out the beauty of the sheer drop-off view, he drives straight toward it! This is one of Jack’s driving habits. Granted, he grew up in the Smoky Mountains, driving like a he-devil; he’s worked on the pit crew of professional race car drivers, and he can build any car from the ground up. He also seems to will himself to believe that everyone on the road is going to do the sensible thing—bad idea. Most people trade in their cars when they tire of the model. Jack has someone total his old-hat autos. Jack was actually involved in accidents in which his vintage Porsche was totaled three times. He refurbished it every time, then sold it for a profit, being perfectly honest about its blighted past.

Anyway, as the scenery becomes one of those swirly paintings that kids make at country fairs, I glare straight ahead in the belief that doing so will somehow glue the wheels to the road. Velocity Man points out a scenic farm. “Oh God!” I dart my eyes in the direction that he’s pointing only to realize that we’re driving straight off the road and into it. “Aieee!” That’s close to the kind of dying animal sound I make as he swerves to miss a row of mailboxes, the tire goes off the shoulder, then we skid back onto the pavement. (By the way, he destroyed the right rear view mirror of my car in a similar venture.) “Damn it! Why do you have to do that?” he yells. “Because I want to look at the farm, not buy it,” I say between my permanently gritted teeth. I estimate that if we are strangely fortunate to reach senior status we will have this conversation at least 10,000 more times.

Now we pull off the road to grab something to tide us over at a fast food restaurant—Burger King. People think I’m exaggerating about the way Jack orders food, often resulting in multiple and erroneous items, until they experience the oddity themselves. We once drove through for a cup of coffee and received six cups of coffee and a small milk even though Jack and I were the only people in the car. “Let’s just get a couple of orders of onion rings and a drink since we’re going out later,” Jack says. Fine with me.

He pulls up. “I’ll have an order of chicken tenders and an order of onion rings, a tea and a diet coke. No, make that two orders of onion rings and a tea.”

The speaker: “So you don’t want the chicken tenders?”

“Yes, I do want them.”

“And the one drink?”

I remind him of the Diet Coke. He orders it and adds an ice tea with onion rings.

“So you want three onion rings, two ice teas, a Diet Coke, and chicken tenders?”

“No!” he rolls his eyes at me, like what’s wrong with this idiot.

We land up with one very large order of onion rings, two drinks, and a bag of about four “chicken tenders” shaped like little crowns.

“What the hell are these and where are the fries?” Jack asks incredulously.

“You didn’t order any fries.” At this point I’m laughing so hard that my Precious Pup raspy hissing evil laugh that I can’t control starts.

“I thought I ordered fries!”

“No, but lucky for you, I’ll share some of these onion rings.”

As I reach into my onion ring container, I discover one lone stubby French fry. “Oh, here’s that fry you ordered,” I say as I offer it to him.

He’s not even smiling, but as he tries to grab it, knocks it between the seats. “Now I’ve got a fry under the seats!” barks Mr. Wilson.

After the chiropractor visit, Jack tells me that he can now walk upright. “It’s a miracle!” he proclaims. It certainly is.