On a family road trip, there are Mommy jobs and Daddy jobs.

The Daddy job is to drive in the straight line of the Interstate for 1000 miles.

The Mommy job is to feed, entertain, cajole, referee, play, settle, soothe, navigate, translate, buckle, unbuckle, re-buckle, clean, and every other mobile nurturing task possible at 70 mph.

Daddy sits upright in his pristine driver's seat, free of crumbs and kid debris. In the rogue moments when Mommy "sits," it is in a seat filled with M&M's, maps, and 17 pieces of luggage that wouldn't fit anywhere else. Ultimately her sitting comfort is moot because she is typically twisted into a pretzel in a seatbelt tending the children behind her.

Daddy must concentrate on the road. Mommy must concentrate on the 4 road-weary children who still need to eat every 4 minutes whilst unpacking their "surprise" bags that took her 3 days and $1100 to make up so that the children don't disturb Daddy for 7 whole minutes.

Daddy must stay in his lane. Mommy must settle all other territorial disputes that erupt in the back seat which include no less than 13 hours of intense negotiations, treaties and bribes.

Daddy must listen to boring a.m. sports talk radio in cities he has no allegiance nor interest in. Mommy must change 80 DVD's in order to find the only working one, Ratatouille, in which we then watch repeatedly for the next 10 days.

Daddy says things like, "I know it's midnight, but we need to just go a hundred more miles until we stop for the night." Mommy says things like, "I'll buy you a pony if you stop asking when we'll be there."

Daddy points out interesting things along the way. Mommy repeats them in an audible voice because no one can hear Daddy over the Ratatouille volume.

Daddy is willing to travel extra miles to save 2 cents a gallon on gasoline. Mommy wonders if her sanity is worth the fuel savings.

Daddy protests a questionable "s" in the 98th round of the alphabet game. Mommy asks if "Straightjacket," "suicide," or "For the love of all that's good and holy could you please let this one slide?" are more acceptable candidates.

Daddy sometimes gets cross at Mommy when he asks her to look up something on the map. Mommy apologizes, but her eyes are bleeding from lack of sleep.

Daddy needs the air conditioning set on 62 degrees because he is the driver and must be comfortable. Mommy makes blankets out of pocket tissues and straw wrappers.

When Daddy does finally stop, he seems to always pass the restaurants Mommy chooses. Mommy eats a lot of BBQ and deep-fried items on sticks on vacation.

When the family finally arrives at their destination, all of the relatives exclaim to Daddy, "Oh! You must be exhausted from driving all that way!"

Mommy silently weeps and wishes that commuter bus they passed back in Muncie would suddenly careen out of control and put her aching, road-filthy, utterly dog-tired, wrethced body out of its misery.

Curiously, Daddy does not offer to switch jobs on the return leg.

©2008 Tracey Henry

Divamail me! Divamail@Suburbandiva.com.