“Hey, so I need to swing through Tar…”
The sentence isn’t even all the way out of my mouth before all three kids yell, “SHOTGUN!”
The race is on — for the front passenger seat.
My little babies — who spent so many years facing backward and then forward but always in the same super-safe, crumb-covered, beverage-stained (please let it have been some sort of beverage) carseats — can all legit ride in the front.
No. 3 finally journeyed forward this summer. He’s still learning the protocol. He actually stuck his hands out the moonroof. “Wooooooooooo!”
“Dude,” I told him, “this is a minivan. That kind of behavior is reserved for convertibles.”
“The view from the front is sooo much better,” he marveled on that maiden voyage.
They’re all big enough, weigh enough, and doggone it, now they’re going to sit right next to me and screw around with my air-conditioning controls and mess with my radio station pre-sets.
I mean, I guess it’s cool that they’re being democratic about the shotgun process and making sure everyone gets a crack at the front seat. Growing up, I was the ultimate seatator and my younger brother never dared utter “Shotgun.” He knew better.
Interestingly, it’s made everyone reassess their positions in the car, and when it’s a full-family ride and there’s no chance at the front — as I previously established decades ago as a child, I own Shotgun — the next-best thing is to stake their claim to the second-row captain’s chairs. But they struggled with what to yell, which is important since in our family yelling must always be involved. Shotgun, obviously, was out. No. 3 actually tried out “Captain’s chair!” That’s just way too long.
I suggested “cap.” For some reason, No. 3 decided to try out C.P.
“That’s almost as many syllables as ‘captain’s chair’ and it’s stupid,” No. 1 informed him.
The actual ground rules are still being hammered out.
Once, we just casually mentioned going out somewhere, and No. 3 called out, “CAP!”
“You have to actually see the car,” No. 1 explained.
No. 3 shrugged, “I’m practicing.”
“Well, that’s just stupid. And annoying. So now you have to sit in the back.”
Huh. Maybe this process isn’t so equal after all.
Another time we headed out the door for a full-family trek, all three started bellowing “Cap!” like some weird tic. They sounded like the seagulls in “Finding Nemo” except instead of squawking “Mine!” “Mine!” “Mine!” they shouted “Cap!” “Cap!” “Cap!”
The OG Captain had had enough.
He. Shut. Them. Down.
“You,” Big Daddy pointed at No. 3, “to the back.”
“But, I called….”
“I don’t care.”
Pretty sure what was uttered at that point wasn’t “Oh cap,” but it was close.
