Up, Up and Away

Do you remember The $25,000 Pyramid? I'll give the clues and you answer.

Me: Cups of Coke; a Bible; a portable phone; a sheet cake; cinnamon rolls----one by one; the pan the cinnamon rolls were in.....      

You:  Things that have blown off the roof of Pat Carey's car!

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!!!! You just won Twenty-Five Thou-ou-ou-sand Dollars!!!!

Okay, admit it. I know I'm not the only one who has done that. I've seen you with the cup of Coke on your roof. But, we got the Bible and the phone back, remarkably undamaged. The cinnamon rolls and the sheet cake, not so much, but the pan the rolls were in only has a small dent in it and I still use it.

Oh, one more thing: When Jake was about seven years old Dennis had met us at a T-ball game after work so we had two cars to ride home in. Josh, who was about ten, rode with Dennis, Jake with me in the station wagon. Back then kids could ride in the front seat with you. It was spring and the car windows were open. I followed behind Dennis, then he turned into our neighborhood at the entrance that he insisted was the fastest way. I knew, I had told him over and over, that the other way was faster, so I went that way---maybe I gunned it a little.  Sensing the excitement and wanting to get in on the fun, Jake said "Mom, let me ride on the windowsill!"

"Absolutely not!" I told him. "This is not the Dukes of Hazard." I saw Dennis's car coming down the side street, so naturally I sped up, but for some reason when he got to the intersection he didn't try to beat me. In fact, I could see him. He wasn't laughing, he was yelling "Stop! Stop!"

I slammed on the brakes, throwing out my arm to catch Jake as every mother does. I felt nothing but air. Jake was not in the car. To say my heart flew into my mouth would be too tame. It was out and onto the floorboard. I jumped from the car to look for my baby splatted on the pavement---and there he was on the roof of the car. He didn't sit on the window; I had told him not to. But I hadn't said "Don't climb out and onto the top of the car!" I still don't know why he thought this would be a fun trick, but, Praise the Lord, there was a luggage rack, because when I slammed on the brakes he held onto it and that is the only reason on God's green earth that he didn't join all that stuff that has blown from the roof of my car.

Now that I have a mini-van, I don't have the problem of things blowing off because I can't reach the roof to set anything up there.

Well, okay, there was that one time when we were coming back from a road trip to St. Louis and it wasn't me who had put things up there anyway. We had taken Josh, Jerilyn, Jake and a friend of his with us and somehow on the return trip we had more luggage than would fit in the van with all six of us.

I think it was Dennis's idea to put the bag of dirty clothes on the roof.  He tied it down really well.  I think he even borrowed some bungee cords from my brother-in-law, but perhaps the trash bag I had used to stow the clothes wasn't as strong as they claim on TV because about thirty miles west of St. Louis on I-44 a car pulled up next to us and the driver was pointing to our roof. I turned around to look and through the back window I watched my lingerie flying down the highway back toward St. Louis, piece by piece. Dennis pulled over onto the shoulder.

"It's okay, it's okay! I needed new underwear anyway," I kept saying, but, NO, all four of those kids would have nothing but to run up and down the side of the road, sometimes out into a lane, grabbing up my bras, panties, night gowns, and who knew what other unmentionables, laughing so loudly that I think the passing vehicles could hear them in spite of the roar of the traffic. In fact, I'm sure they could hear them, why else was everybody slowing down and looking at us?

We didn't try to put them back on the roof again but stuffed everything along the floorboards. It's not like they could have gotten any dirtier. When we got home I washed them with extra soap and bleach for disinfectant. When they came out of the dryer can you believe that everything I had taken to St. Louis was there? Along with a prize for going through the ordeal: maybe not $25,000, but a lovely silk scarf I had never seen before.