Driving me Crazy

I have read several times over the years that the most common thing for couples to fight about is money. I have not found that to be the case in our years of marital bliss. Whether we have had a little extra money to spare or none at all, money is not what my husband and I fight about.

You know what we fight about?

Food.

Each other’s driving.

His disgusting caveman-like habits.

My “inability” to accept criticism.

Well, I could write a book about each of these topics. But tonight I want to recount just one more page in our long and storied past when it comes to driving.

I took over the wheel last night after my husband, Tim, had been driving for 3-plus hours. We had picked up our oldest son and his fiancé at the airport and pulled over at a rest stop for a bathroom break and so we could switch.

After leaving the rest stop, I re-entered the highway from the left — I hate left entry. Who the heck plans that? Well, I gunned our minivan roadster to get up to speed and after merging out of the left on-ramp, I moved the car over to the right by one lane. I began adjusting my mirrors (forgot to change them when we got in) so I could move over even one more lane to the right (it was a four-lane highway). Before I can even touch the buttons to adjust the mirrors my husband bursts out, “GET OVER. YOU NEED TO BE DOING 70. IT IS 70 MILES PER HOUR HERE!!”

I had been in the lane for approximately 3 seconds at this point. THREE. Not three minutes. Not three freaking hours of him enduring 60 miles-per-hour in a 70 mile-per-hour speed zone. Three SECONDS. I start explaining that I realized I was going a bit slow and was adjusting my mirrors when he interrupts and starts barking about how dangerous it is for me to drive under the speed limit. I was going to cause an accident. Blah blah blah blah blah.

For any Tim-sympathesizers out there I would also like to explain that this was not rush-hour traffic. I was not squeezing into a lane jam-packed with cars going 70, 80 and above and I was plodding along going 60. It was 10:30 at night with very few cars on the road — cars far enough behind me to adjust to my sweet, grandmotherly-like entry.

So that began the long tense ride back home. I could feel the anger welling up from the passenger side of the car and spilling over to my happy place. I had not seen my son and future daughter-in-law in a month! I was eager to ask them questions and see what was new.

I began cheerfully chatting away — “How were the sheep?” “Any new lambs?” “Did you get a chance to…”

“PUT THE CRUISE CONTROL ON. EVERY TIME YOU TALK YOUR SPEED DROPS.”

He is actually right about that — but again, hardly any cars on the road. But fine. I throw him a bone and set the cruise control. I occasionally did need to turn the cruise control off now-and-again, but I make a point of staying right around the speed limit. We were in Florida with a New York plate and lots and lots of night construction on the highway. I was not going to give the police any reason to pull me over while simultaneously trying to get my husband to close his mouth and stop micromanaging me before I leapt over the center consul and stabbed him in the throat.

We arrive home only to get into an argument the next morning about something else because, let’s be honest, tensions were still running high from the night before. We are going back and forth, each of us appalled at one another’s complete and total lack of self-awareness when it alllll falls out. The real reason my Valentine was so darn angry the night before.

“My back was KILLING me last night and you were going SIXTY MILES PER HOUR THE ENTIRE WAY HOME!!”

Ohhhh……but no. I knew this was not true because I had specifically paid attention to the speed limit because I knew he was seething over there in the passenger seat, hating my driving just as much as I hate his. He makes me feel like my life is about to end and all of children’s lives with every hot dog move he makes, while I make him feel like he stepped through a time portal and is now riding alongside his 92 year-old wife. SLOW AS MOLASSES. “Overly careful.” he says. “So careful it’s dangerous.”

I tried to defend myself and he looked like he wanted to gut me — but we had “fun family vacation activities” to get to…so! That was it. Move on. We could stuff it down and both be angry about how maddeningly stupid the other one was later.

But THEN!! After fun family vacationing we go to eat at a seafood restaurant and we all get different versions of something fried — fried whole belly clams, fried fish sandwich, fried shrimp, hushpuppies, you name it. Everything fried. I had a sneaking suspicion from the previous week (speaking of feeling like you are 92) that fried food no longer agreed with me. This suspicion was confirmed to my great discomfort and dismay.

At the end of the meal I got up and told everyone I would wait outside. I felt awful. I started to sweat and felt like rodents were crawling through my intestines. Large, gassy, pain-inducing rodents. Not to worry though — it was only the harbinger of explosive diarrhea. We had taken two cars because we could not all fit into one. Originally, after lunch, I had planned to stop at the library with my other son to pick up a book he had ordered. Not now though — I needed to get home FAST. Forget the library. Forget everything. Would I make it? I was panicking.

Everyone gets in the car and I am actually moaning. “Remind me,” I tell everyone, “of how I feel right now the next time I say I am going to order fried food.”

“You said that last week,” my 8 year-old daughter says flatly.

I want to tell her to shut up. “Well, this time, I mean it.”

So we drive home — well we almost did. I am playing Scrabble on my phone to try to do anything to distract myself from the agony when I sense the car stopping. Tim is explaining to the kids about the trail head in front of us — he is gesturing towards the wooded area in front of the car that is not on the way to where we are staying. He is casually explaining where the trails go etc etc etc UNTIL I GLARE AT HIM LIKE I AM GOING TO END HIM right there and then.

“SERIOUSLY???” I spat.

“What?” Blank.

“Oh! Sorry!” he turns around and heads towards home.

Mr. “MY BACK WAS KILLING ME AND YOU WERE DRIVING SIXTY,” took a detour for a little sightseeing while I am quite literally trying to hold it all together.

I wanted to kill him. But even better than killing him was the satisfying feeling that he had been just as inadvertently inconsiderate as he accused me of being the night before. Granted, it was not his awful driving that was the issue. It was his awful awareness of the dire situation at hand. He had already forgotten in a 10-minute ride that I felt like I was going to die.

Two different issues, really. But for some pathetic reason I felt vindicated.

So, no. We are not completely immature people who thrive off of tit-for-tat arguments where there are winners and losers. Most of the time we get along just fine. But when we don’t, I like it when he makes the same mistakes I do.

Or at least the ones he “thinks” I make.

Originally published at https://dailydoseofmama.com on April 13, 2022.