Twisted

I have wrecked more cars in the last few years, it is either my magnetic personality or my incredibly bad luck. I have been hit by a pizza delivery guy who a blew through a stop sign, a landscaping truck that made a left turn in front of me (I had the right of way), a drunk driver going the wrong way on a one way street (I'm lucky that one wasn't worse) and tapped from behind behind a truck twice the size of my car when his foot slipped off the pedal. Still caused thousands of dollars of damage. None of these accidents were my fault or even avoidable. I blame this for my uber-defensive (neurotic? possibly) driving of today. I try to avoid making left turns across traffic unless there is a light. Otherwise, I become overly cautious and feel guilty about the amount of cars stuck behind me. I will plan my route to my destination sometimes based on this. I will nearly have a panic attack if I am stuck between large vehicles on my left and right while driving down the interstate. It would only take a split second to wander into my lane and I would have nowhere to escape. I didn't realize that I talk to other drivers until I had children. I will apologize, "Oops, sorry..sorry." or will say worse things, like, "Nice (explitive) blinker!"(which is North Dakotan for turn-signal). I thought that I was pretty good about keeping my thoughts to myself until I cursed under my breath at the driver ahead of me who had stopped short., and when my oldest said, "What did you say?" and my youngest answered, "He be an id-yot, right mommy?"


One of my secret satisfactions is when some jerk decides he absolutely needs to be in front of me, that I'm driving too slow (which is rarely the case), and he swings out, passes me, cuts me off and then speeds away. But at the next traffic light, there I am, right behind him. Was it worth risking life and limb to be a nano second in front of me? Geez I hope so. And just to remind you, I'm going to sit right on top of your back bumper. We have an over abundance of personalized license plates in North Dakota. In a land where people are the strong silent types, I suspect this is their one outlet of artistic expression. But the ones that don't make sense? I squint, try to sound it out (aloud), and still don't get it. I nearly ram him because somehow being closer will help it make more sense to me.

I can go on and on about pet peeves (near road rage on ocassion), but let's move on.

I fear that some of the strange things I do are hereditary. My youngest eats a waffle every day for breakfast. But it must have the perfect square slice of butter under the syrup (which must fill every hole of the waffle) so that it looks just like the picture on the bottle. Even though we cut it all to pieces half a minute later. Shawn once tried a quick version of waffle serving, by ripping it to bits with his hands and pouring the syrup on that. Kamrin found this unacceptable and would not eat it.

I have removed shoes numerous times in one sitting to adjust socks that had "bumps" and could not be tolerated. My children refuse to eat 'broken' food. For example, singly-wrapped processed (urgh) cheese must remain whole to be eaten. It doesn't matter that it is no longer whole after the first bite. I've never seen the logic in this. Same thing goes for candy canes, fruit roll-ups, and bananas. Weird.

My children also have the gene that compels them to pour milk on ice cream. This makes absolutely no sense to me. Aren't you already eating a frozen dairy product very similar to milk? Does it help to have the thawed and frozen version of the food in the same bowl?

Kamrin always claims to be cold. I don't doubt that, since he's just a slip of a little boy. But he will sleep on top of floor vents, stand inches from a space heater, and without fail every morning, he will wait until I turn the hair-dryer on, lay on the floor at my feet with a blanket over him so that I will warm him with the dryer.

Just a few of the things I don't get. Kaiden must perform a bed time ritual in a certain order or he will start over. Shawn puts salt and pepper on everything...before tasting it.

I guess every family learns to adapt to each member's quirks...doesn't mean I have to understand them.