Hippo Brigade

Mama’s New Car

I borrowed a rad car from GM for a week.

First thing I had to do was abandon my misconception that only old people drive Cadillacs. Because apparently they’re big with the upper-management-golfing-dad category too.

Cadillac also makes a bunch of  amazing mom-friendly cars, I however requested to drive the fastest production sedan in the world:

The CTS-V.

Ask and you shall receive…

This car went fast. Very very fast. This thing roared like a hungry fistful of bees. No, wait, if I use that analogy people will imagine their hands are filled with bees. And no one wants a hand filled with bees. Beads maybe, but bees? No. Plus, bees don’t really make a super roar-y sound. They’re more like a gentle hum. Like a kazoo, or a dishwasher on the pots and pans setting. Which, I have never used, because my mom and Martha Stewart both say don’t put your pots and pans in the dishwasher. And if my mom AND Martha Stewart are both telling me something, I’d better listen.

Wait, what were we talking about…?

Oh yeah, cars.

So I was driving this awesome piece of machinery around for a week. Can you imagine me in it? I looked like I was borrowing my dad’s car or something. But somehow I managed to buckle car seats in the back and convert this sanctimonious caddy to a full-fledged mom-car: Cheeros in the cracks of the seats and Skip to my Lou beating from the bass.

I was sad at the end of the week to give it back. Especially since I got really good at figuring out where 5th gear was, which happens to be right next to reverse. I feared for my life every time I was on the freeway because I thought I’d accidentally put it in reverse while driving 65 MPH down the freeway. I don’t even think it’s possible to put it in reverse while driving 65 MPH on the freeway, but I was still scared. And every time I’d put it in 5th, I’d wince and imagine Jesus holding me like a baby bird in his giant hands.

As much fun as it is driving a new car around, it’s good to be back in my trusty Volkswagen. It keeps me humble. It’s familiar smell of rancid milk rotting away in a hidden sippy cup, it’s door cubbies filled with crinkled arts and crafts Berlyn brings home from pre-school, and the crushed graham crackers embedded into the floor mats are all gentle reminders that I am not a fancy-golf-club-carting-556 horsepower-Cadillac-driving-lady. Instead, I am a diaper-bag-toting-shop-at-Target-kind-of-mama who forgets that she put her coffee on the roof of the car then drives off in a fluster and it spills all over the front of the windshield when she stops suddenly to let a family of quails cross the street.

It’s fun to play dress up once in a while, but if cars were pants, my Volkswagen would be a cozy pair of jelly stained Mervyn’s sweatpants and a Cadallic would be a pair freshly pressed ivory St. John slacks.

And I love me some jelly.

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