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Friday, February 29, 2008

Conversation Hearts: Road Trip

I woke up to a snow storm today. It snowed all day. The tri-county area of Michigan I live in, exceeded it's predicted wintery blast and has officially run out of salt. The streets are slush and black ice. We are supposed to get snow Saturday and sleeting rain on Sunday.

So of course, I call my daughter.
She lives about 2 miles from the salon she works at.


Me: (5PM) Hi Cait, have you left work yet?

Cait: Yeah, I left about an hour ago.

Me: Good, the roads are nasty and rush hour traffic will be a biotch.

Cait: ::: Laughing, ignoring me, saying something :::

Me: Cait? CAIT? Are you at home? Who is laughing so hard with you?

Cait: Sorry Mom, that's Ashley and Michelle (the owner of the salon)

Me: Are you in the car?

Cait: Yeah, we're on our way to Chicago.

Me: WHAT?!?!?!?! What are you doing?

Cait: We're going to a hair show/seminar.

Me: Who's driving?

Cait: I am.

Me: (On my hands and knees wishing I had a rosary and I'm not even Catholic)
No way Cait, I'm not comfortable with you taking your car.

Cait: Me either, I have dads SUV.

Me: Okay, have fun, drive careful, call me .... sometime?!?!

I was really thinking crap! He let her go in this weather? She never drives out of a 15 mile radius.

Then I remembered, when I was 18, I stuck my thumb out on I-75 and hitched-hiked to Mexico to live, with nothing on my mind but having fun.

She'll be 20 in a couple months. She's with other girls, a reliable SUV, and a couple charge cards. She'll have a blast.

13 comments:

Sugarplum's Mom said...

Good for you for remembering what it was like at that age... I swore when I was 14 I would always remember what I felt like at that age and I would be the coolest mom ever and let my daughter do whatever she wanted. HA!

Mary Alice said...

It is hard to go from protective mom to letting them be the grown ups that they are becoming. Good for you - I'll still say a prayer for her safe return though.

Robin said...

You are one cool mom.

My kids are still young, but I already cringe in fear at the thought of them pulling some of the crap that I did.

You'll post when she gets home safely, right?

Joan said...

I dread this driving thing and it's just started for me.

Desiree Eaglin said...

She'll be having fun and you'll be freaking out all weekend wondering if she's ok...

:o|

Desiree Eaglin said...

She'll be having fun and you'll be freaking out all weekend wondering if she's ok...

:o|

Anonymous said...

Are you as sick of this crap as I am? I couldn't believe it yesterday. Let's get serious here. It stops. They plow. It starts again. They plow again. They throw some sand down. It snows.

I think we got an extra 6 inches yesterday. ;-( Hate it.

And you're right. She'll have a great time!

Mrs. G. said...

No matter how old our babies are we are always moms. She will have a blast. I remember those road trips. I have a Cait too.

Carrie @carrieloves said...

It's so surprising how times have changed... my husband and I always look back and say "can you imagine?" "Uh, nope!"

Sherry said...

Of course, what we did back in the day made sense to us - our hormones hadn't irreveribly changed to Mother Mode yet -- so we had no idea that anyone else might just worry about us, about our safety. The landscape changes when we're done the "mom" thing -- and good for you remembering that youth is it's own barometer...and she'll be fine. Doesn't mean you won't worry, just that you "get it".

Jami said...

Can you come be my Mom for a while? (We can ignore the fact that I'm slightly older than you.)

Jen said...

First - she'll be fine, and yay for her for thinking of taking her dad's SUV.

Second - I remember last summer after my own Mexico trip you mentioned your own Mexico stories. Are you going to retell them? Because those would be some good stories!

detroit dog said...

I think you had such guts to up and hitchhike to Mexico. Wish I'd been so brave.