Twisted Sister

By some freak of nature, I actually found myself reading the Automobiles section of the New York Times yesterday. What caught my eye was a review of the 2009 Honda Pilot. It was a life affirming moment for me when the reviewer relayed that “Eight people will not be happy in the Pilot unless three of them are adolescents willing to endure prolonged flank-to-flank contact.” (New York Times, Sunday, June 8, 2008).

Me and my flank are still recovering and unraveling from a recent drive from Connecticut to New Jersey where I had the misfortune of sitting in the third row with my five year old nephew in his car seat to my left and my ten year old son to my right. It was obvious to me after a few minutes, exactly why my brother-in-law had insisted I switch seats with him after only 3 seconds in the back row.

Wedged in between the two boys, it became very apparent that the middle seat was meant for an anorexic young child. The part of the seat belt that the buckle goes into (sorry, don’t know the technical term as I am not a regular reader of the Automobile section of the paper) was digging into my right hip and causing instantaneous nerve damage. Meanwhile my knees were parallel to my breasts (and no, not because my breasts had dropped down to my knees, I am not there…yet) causing what felt like hip displaysia. After a while, I realized I could no longer feel either butt cheek (I believe that is the technical term).

Not being one to suffer in silence, I complained vociferously to the other seven passengers. I insisted I was probably on my way to permanent health problems, a walker or a cane, months of physical therapy, or worse. I also targeted my eleven year old daughter and kept telling her she should have made the sacrifice and sat back there seeing as how I had sacrificed for her for 20 hours of labor and then had a c-section.

Of course, the discomfort was compounded by the fact that we were driving through a rainstorm the whole time which caused traffic to slow down to a crawl. Add to that the usual kind of kiddy banter between four children ranging in age from three to eleven (“x called me a boogerpicker”, “let’s sing the diarrhea song”, etc.) and I was having a flashback to the time we took them all to see the holiday lights and I was sure that I was trapped in Jingle Hell.

As we got within range of our destination in New Jersey I started moaning that because I had lost all feeling in my legs and because my knees were now glued to my ears someone would have to call the Fire Department. I was sure that they would need to use the “Jaws of Life” to extract me from the vehicle. I am proud to say that in the end, I was able to hobble out of the vehicle (very ungracefully, if I must say so) myself.

My constant whining at my own discomfort did achieve one thing. It guilted my twin sister into taking a seat in the third row (though she wisely did not take that middle seat with the integrated seat belt housing unit/cattle prod device) while I sat in the second row appreciating the return of sensation to my bottom. Now we can both go to physical therapy together.