The Family Flames

I'd like to tell you that I am a meek and mild woman with a soft voice and genteel manner.

However. . .

My mother always told me it was a sin to lie.

I am only meek when compelled and the only time I am mild is around infants. As for soft voice and genteel manner, I can be appropriate when necessary for the duration of the necessity, but once that is over, I revert to who I really am.

Deep down beneath the wrinkles and laugh lines that define the passage of time on my face is a young woman who loves the feel of the engine revving and the rumble of road beneath the powerful muscle of a sports car.

I have always wanted to have another sports car. I have had two of them in my younger years and loved them both. But, it seems that when you become a mother your name and identity is changed to reflect either a minivan or an SUV.

I long to pull into a dealership and trade it all away for a hot muscle car with flames licking up over the hood and around the blower and down the sides of the car in iridescent color that changes hue as you pass throught the lights of the days and nights of life.

My longsuffering husband frequently teases me saying that we can have a compromise - a minivan with flames.

Oddly enough, I can actually picture that in my mind.

A van that is midnight blue which is well appointed and tasteful . . . with the flames creating the visual image of the family car on steroids bursting through the flaming hoop of death as it leaps through the void over a row of parked cars or perhaps school buses parked side by side on the highway.

Aaaaaah! I can see it all now!

The family flames zipping in and out of traffic at will, burning my way through the traffic jams that detour the weak from their appointed duties. A powerful engine coursing in and around vehicles that seem to be at a standstill as the van of destiny makes it's way around town and on the highway toward the promised land of . . . well, wherever it is I have to go.

I realize my husband would never actually agree to the flames. He is not the type to advertise the truth about his wife - even if I am willing to do so.

Oh well.

Maybe in the old folks home . . .