Our two youngest invited a couple of fiends over to spend the night. Anticipating a house crammed full of noisy pre-teen girls, I promised Eldest Daughter that we would vacate the premises and spend some quality time together.
Unfortunately, I had forgotten that while we all have the day off tomorrow, it was still Sunday...
By the time we headed out the door, we missed the window of opportunity to get to the half-price book store before it closed. As well as the window to get to the most local Barnes & Noble before it closed. Ah, well. There's still the comic book store at the mall, which was... closed.
Boogers.
We barely managed to get into and out of the local hardware store for a purchase before it closed, as well. Ended up at Coffeebucks, where ED got herself a slightly-coffee flavored liquid candy bar. A long talk about school, college plans, and peers followed. It ended up with me uttering what, in hindsight, are probably the most terrifying words I have ever spoken aloud:
"So," I said. "Do you want a driving lesson?"
Twenty minutes later, we were in a deserted parking lot, and I was instructing Eldest Daughter in the fine (yet surprisingly commonplace) art of controlling a one-and-a-half ton piece of steel and plastic wrapped around a tank of explosive liquid.
She did just fine, really. It will probably be a good while before she's ready to be on the road, though. I suspect that she will master the mechanics of driving long before she masters the kind of focus that she will need in order to be a good driver.
We ended up the evening getting a bite to eat and talking more about friends and personal relationships. All in all, a very good time. It was only on my way home that I realized that getting into the car with a completely untrained driver was less stressful, for me, than spending the evening in the same house as a gaggle of little girls.
Not sure exactly what that says about me, but I am pretty sure it says something.
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