Being a little late, I had to sit behind two lines of three cars each. With both of my children in the back, drinking their Slimfasts, I had the music on and the back window open about an eighth of an inch. We sat waiting for the kids to get out and the line of cars to move forward, so I put the car in park and set the emergency brake. Then my daughter dropped her drink onto the floorboard. As I frantically strained myself back toward her, with foot hard on the brake to help me reach, I fumble around to find it.

As I did so, I heard someone revving their engine. I couldn’t be sure, though, because the music was on and the window was only slightly open. I located the drink, which luckily hadn’t spilled too much, and give it back to her. I still heard an engine racing, only now it is much louder. I started looking around, trying to find the moron that would do such a thing at an elementary school at pick-up time.

Then I realize everyone was looking at me! See, we had to buy another car recently. Another Subaru. Both are white, same model, one year apart, but our newer one is an automatic. I thought I was driving the stick shift. I also thought I was pressing on the brake. But no! I had that thing pegged at more than 8,000 RPM’s! My foot came off the pedal like lightning, and my knee crashed into the steering wheel. I yelped in pain. Moms all around were looking at me like they’d just gotten word that my village wanted its idiot back. I couldn’t have been more embarrassed or dumbfounded at my own stupidity.

                As I tried to calm down, I eased the car forward. Some children were getting picked up now, and cars were moving forward. I got to the front of the line and shifted to park to await the bag of homework. The teacher opened the rear door and handed it to my daughter. She looked at me, raised a brow and asked, with a slight smile, “Everything Ok?”

“Oh yea, just being stupid.” I replied.

My children belted out, “Daddy, you don’t use the word, stupid!”

“But kids, I’m calling myself stupid. Isn’t that Ok?”

My daughter looked to her teacher for an answer. The teacher said, “Yes, darling, it is Ok if he calls himself stupid.”

She shut the door and walked off laughing. I bowed my head low (my human equivalent of tucking my tail between my legs), kind of chuckled, released the parking brake, put the car in drive and gave it a little gas.

I went nowhere. I realized I wasn’t in drive, but in neutral. I slipped it into drive before the RPM’s lowered and jump/screeched the tires, my head slamming the back of the seat. Oh, dear Lord! I didn’t think it could get any worse! It was as if someone had torn out my spinal cord, decided that that wasn’t good enough, and began to beat me about the head with it. I just wanted this day to go away. My inner child was in the fetal position weeping.

                I drove home carefully. As I got to my driveway, I thought again about what I had just done, and shook my head in defeat. How could you be so stupid? Idiot!

I turned into the driveway and quickly engaged the clutch, slamming the kids into their seatbelts and burning a foot-long skid mark into the pavement. Once again: idiot! You’re in the automatic!

“What was that for, Daddy!?”, they both yelled. Before I could answer, I notice my neighbors looking strangely at me from their garden. My inner child was now going through a gang initiation. “A squirrel”, I said in my inner child’s voice.

Later that night, as my testosterone inched back up to normal levels and my spine found its way home, I told my wife about my day. As she rolled around on the floor crying and laughing, (at me)I thought to myself, being a stay-at-home dad doesn’t get any better than this.

Craig Lawrey