Okay what gives? I was born in the early 1970’s. Growing up in the 1980’s when we had big hair, flashy clothes, and didn’t seem to care too much about overspending, was quite an adventure.

When I was a kid there was a comedian that made a joke about driving a YUGO (the tiniest car with a small price tag) and having a car phone. Not cell phones mind you but a cell phone that was actually attached to the car interior. The joke was if you had a YUGO you didn’t need a car phone you needed to save your money to buy a real car.

Today, I dropped my car off at the car dealer for some minor repairs all of them covered by the warranty. When it became apparent that the repairs were not going as quickly as we all had hoped the manager offered me a loaner car and said they would call when my car was ready. He said the lot boy would bring around a Saturn in just a minute. Immediately visions of freakishly colored Lavender or Yellow four door tin cans danced in my head. It is not the 80’s anymore!

The lot boy drove around in a car that hardly resembled a Saturn at all! This car actually looked more like a Nissan or a Toyota. Then came the exciting part, I got in the car and began to move mirrors and adjust seats and my heart began to race. This car, once associated with grandparents and RV’s, fascinated me. Everything was automatic, bells and whistles on top of bells and whistles. There was digital temp control, a six CD changer, cruise control and stereo settings on the front of the steering wheel. This car had all of the trappings suggesting it wanted to be not a Nissan but an Acura or Cadillac when it grew up.

Then in my euphoria of button pushing it happened. I heard and incredible sound and a movie preview! I thought I was operating the CD changer but I had actually stumbled upon the DVD player with Bose sound.

I would have been completely overjoyed except once I detected the DVD screen I also realized I was the only person in the car which meant I had to drive and would not be able to watch a movie.

Once again, I had found the joys of sitting in the back seat, the exuberance of being a child and giggling on the ride to almost anywhere.

I was amused all the way home as I turned up the stereo and coasted down the road. It was when I got out of the car it hit me; my son was standing before me smiling. Ordinarily this is the cherry on top of my day, but just then I became painfully aware that I would never be the master of the remote in my borrowed car just as I am rarely the master of the remote in my house.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 at 10:18 pm and is filed under Public. You can follow this post through this RSS 2.0 feed.