Dear diary,
People say driving is a peaceful activity. You know, wind in your hair, music playing, mind drifting. But that’s only true if you're not driving with my mother in the passenger seat. Oh no, in that case, you'd rather walk barefoot from Paris to London.
I have a driver’s license. Governate -issued, government-approved, laminated proof that I am, by all legal standards, capable of operating a motor vehicle.
But in my mother’s eyes? I’m apparently a barely-functioning chimp in a two-ton weapon. One wrong move let’s say, I glance at the radio for half a second and she acts like I’ve just hijacked a plane.
Tension was already sky-high she’s barking orders like a one-woman SWAT team, and I’m trying to remember that prison orange isn’t my color when we pull up to a police checkpoint.
Mid-argument. Windows down. Voices up.
She snaps, “Get out, I’m driving,” like I’m trying to flee the scene of my own embarrassment. I gave her the wheel not because I agreed, but because I value staying alive.
Anyway, as I mentioned earlier windows are down (because why argue in private when you can put on a show for the entire town?), and of course, some local genius probably the town idiot with a full-time job as a clown yells, “Complete what you're doing, nobody saw you!”
Yeah, buddy, thanks for the commentary.
We’re not robbing a bank, genius. Just destroying each other emotionally in public. Totally legal.
I almost retorted back with, “I have a license, you absolute moron,” but I didn’t. I love a good debate but arguing with small-town comedians is like wrestling a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig enjoys it.
Anyway, my mom, now feeling slightly guilty for treating me like an underqualified stunt driver, asks, “What do you want for breakfast? Sandwiches? Something else?”
To which I gave the classic, dramatic teenager response:
“I don’t want anything.”
She muttered something possibly in a foreign dialect of passive aggression and I let it slide. My sister, playing the role of UN peacekeeper, clarified:
“She didn’t say she didn’t want anything. She said she’ll eat anything.”
Ah, diplomacy.
Then, as the dust settled and the breakfast negotiation drew to a close, my mom turned to me and asked, “What are you up to now, you little menace?”
I smiled. “Writing in my diary.”
My sister, never missing a beat, said: “Probably writing about you.”
She wasn’t wrong
And we had breakfast together. As if none of it ever happened. Because in our family, conflict is just foreplay for French toast.