What Goes Around Comes Around

by Donna Swagerty Shreve

I was having a rare conversation with my eleven year old grandson Michael. The topic of family stories came up and he volunteered that he knew one about me. I was horrified that a lapse on my part had made it into family lore. My mother had had a similar experience when she realized she was going down in family lore as a terrorist at the airport.(https://swagertystories.com/melva-the-airport-terrorist/) Now it was my turn to feel chagrin. I felt it was only fair to get my version of the story out there before it goes through several renditions through various relatives starting with my sons. 

Our family drove to El Paso yearly to visit John’s parents. It was such a long drive that it took two full days of driving. Any stopping for bathroom breaks or eating just added to the guaranteed 24 hours of driving time.

We were in our 1983 Volvo diesel station wagon. It was bright red which contrasted with its lack of any get up and go. It had a few new features to us such as automatic windows. During our long endurance rides any of the guys in the car felt no need to restrain their bodily impulses. It provided an excuse to make use of the automatic windows. How courteous!  I always complained but to no avail.

It is now getting close to the end of our first day of driving and we were in the desert out in the middle of nowhere and far from any large population. For some reason I was sitting in one of the back sets. Always before I, had claimed a right to the front seat because I had longer legs than the two boys. I could no longer claim that distinction. John always got to be the driver except on rare occasions. The two boys and I took turns rotating our seats just to mix it up.

Suddenly I realized I had a choice to make: hold in the growing pressure of the intestinal gas in my system and endure a stomach ache or relieve myself like everyone else in the car had chosen to do previously. In my defense, I was tired and decided fair was fair. I let it rip and quickly pushed the button for my window to go down and provide fresh air. Unfortunately for me, every other human in the car did the same thing to their windows. Now there are four windows going down at the same time. It proved to be too much for the fuse which blew out. Now we were stuck with driving with all windows down and cool night air blasting in.

When I am embarrassed, I tend to giggle which I began to do. I was joined by everyone else in the car. But now we had a problem. John pulled over and stopped the car to see what he could do to fix the problem. He substituted some other fuse in the panel for the window fuse. We were able to drive into the next town with the windows up and John found a hardware store to buy a new fuse. Fortunately we were not delayed that much but a story for retelling had been established in family lore.

This story hasn’t come up through the years until Michael, my grandson, got a hold of it. Now I can feel the same chagrin my mother felt all those years ago. She would be quite amused to know I was experiencing karma.

585 words

D. Shreve

7/25/2020