when landon turned 18 yrs. old, he received a pretty fair amount of money that had been set up in a trust fund from the accident we had been involved in when he was 10. not a good idea, i don't think, to give an 18 yr. old boy anything larger than a $20 bill. (especially, when his mama has nothing larger than a $20 bill.) they will spend it. very fast. on very foolish things. and landon, well...let me just say that landon is my..ummmm...how shall i say this....my boy that marches to the sound of a different drum. he is an extremely confident, outgoing, popular, doesn't really care what people think about him, kind of boy. he was always the class clown, the goofball, the one who does not get embarrassed about anything. very, very unlike his mama. i am not confident, not popular, just a little outgoing (snicker), cares very much about what people i don't even know thinks about me. gets embarrassed easily (usually from the idiotic things i do to myself,) and i am not a boy. i'm a girl. i'm a woman. hear me roar.
anyway, landon and christian, his polar opposite brother, were living down in clewiston and i was living up here in savannah. it was christmas and the boys came up here every year for the holidays and usually stayed for a week or so. this year, 1999, would be no exception. landon had decided to get rid of his cutlass and buy another used car. a very used car. a very used, ugly car. a 1987 chevy caprice. and since he had his hands on this fair amount of money, he decided that he would splurge on a new paint job for the ugly car. to make it look "good", so he said. keep in mind that i had no earthly idea what a chevy caprice looked like. also keep in mind that he had forgotten to mention to me what color he was having it painted.
the afternoon he and christian were due to be at our house, micajah and i were anxiously awaiting their arrival and decided to sit out on the front porch so we could see them the minute they pulled up. it is NOT a good omen...when you hear the car approaching a good five minutes BEFORE you actually SEE said car. it is also NOT a good idea to sit outside on the front porch (before you have had a chance to view the car,) when said car comes careening down your street, so that all of your neighbors can witness your absolute humiliation first hand. (instead of hearing about it at the neighborhood block party.)
at first we heard just a booming noise that sounded like a drum beating. a very large, very loud drum. then we heard what sounded like a couple of kids repeating the same exact words, over and over and over again. i think he had 5 or 6 "ghetto blasters" installed, and then...just out of the corner of my eye, (the neighbors trees were blocking my view) i saw just the tiniest glimpse of PINK! MAGENTA PINK! METALLIC MAGENTA PINK! and my first thought was "OH DEAR GOD, NO! NO...NO...NO...please don't let this be them, please don't let this be them!" but it was. them. in a 24 ft. BARBIE MOBILE!!! i was dying. right there on my porch, in front of all three of my children and all of my neighbors, who just happened to be outside at that moment. i was surely dying. of utter and complete humiliation. i don't recall even hugging my boys. or speaking to them. what i do remember was crawling back into my house and hiding under the covers and praying that this was somehow a mistake...he was not SERIOUSLY thinking of parking this monstrosity in my DRIVEWAY!!!!
i could not even pretend to be thrilled when landon walked inside and said, well, mom, what do you think of my new "ride?" what i thought of his new "ride" was that i wanted him to get back inside of it and "ride" it right back down to FL and just forget that this had ever happened. if i could forget, surely in time, my neighbors could forget too, right?
but what i said was something like, landon, what in the world is WRONG with you? WHERE DID I FAIL YOU? WAS IT BECAUSE I MADE YOU WEAR SANDALS THAT TIME FOR YOUR PROFESSIONAL PROTRAIT, or DID THAT BASEBALL BAT THAT HIT YOU IN THE HEAD DO SOMETHING TO YOUR BRAIN ? WHY on GOD'S GREEN EARTH would you paint a car METALLIC MAGENTA PINK? do you want to be a girl? do you feel like one of those people who was born in the wrong body? are you gay and this is your way of telling me? i was mortified. but, he said he wanted it to be a color that would be noticed. that when people saw it moving down the road, they would say "there goes landon." well, clewiston is a very small town. everyone there already knew him. he didn't have to go METALLIC MAGENTA PINK to be noticed. but he loved it. and what is bad... really, really bad... is that my other two boys loved it too!
when we were getting dressed the next morning to go to church, landon walked into my bedroom and asked me if i wanted to ride to church with him...in the BARBIE MOBILE!! i was speechless. i wanted to beg off going, by saying i was sick. (i really WAS sick at the thought of actually having to ride in that car) and i prayed, "Lord, please do not make me ride in this car. i can not let my church friends see me come pulling up in that...that THING!" and, GOD saved me. when landon walked outside two of his tires were flat. as in pancakes flat. (OOOOOH, thank you LORD.) and no, i didn't go outside in the middle of the night and stick a knife in them. he had driven 500 miles on bad tires to get to my house in time for christmas eve. sooo...guess what he got for christmas? yep...new tires. four of them.
i never did have to ride in the BARBIE MOBILE. the boys were only able to stay a few days this trip and it took several days to find a place that could fit him in to get new tires put on, on such short notice, with it being the holidays and all. really, i called everywhere i could think of, but they were all booked up for the holidays. (hehehe)
the night before the boys went home, landon had parked the car at the top of our driveway. i wouldn't let him park on the street where he wanted to park, because (1) our mailman doesn't like you to park in front of the mailbox, and (2) you never knew when the streetsweeper was going to come. (and that way, we could park our cars behind him and our neighbors wouldn't have to see HIS car.) after getting new tires put on and having it aligned and balanced, he got up the next morning and they loaded up the car and it wouldn't crank. it turned over, but it wouldn't crank. he was trying to think of what could possibly be wrong with it. the battery obviously wasn't dead. it probably wasn't the starter, because it would turn over. hmmmmm...what could it be? like i said, he had parked at the top of the driveway, which is on a slope and having the needle sitting on empty (because, mom, i thought i had enough gas to get me into town) the car had run completely out of gas. soooooo, the middle-aged man who would later leave me for greener pastures, used the gas he had for the lawnmowers and filled his tank up with enough gas to get him to a gas station, where he could fill it all the way up.
i did, however, in a moment of guilt over how i had reacted, send him on his merry way with one really cute addition to the car. in his christmas stocking he got a huge pair of PINK FURRY DICE to hang on his rear view mirror. i wanted to get him a license plate that said WANNABE BARBIE, but he wouldn't let me. i don't know why.
fortunately, his love of all things pink ended and he now drives a much nicer car. a gray one. fits him better i think, now that he's married, with kids and all. every now and then when we went back home to clewiston to visit, we would see some other scmuck riding down main street in the BARBIE MOBILE. and i would say a little prayer for his mama. and for me. thanking GOD that MY little boy had finally grown up!
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