Space Invaders by Carol Wells
Space - according to Star Trek shows it is the Final Frontier. To others space can be a personal but sacred thing. Carefully guarding it to not have anyone encroach on their domain. Sometimes, though, there are situations when guarding one's personal space cannot always be done - or will create headaches for the parent when the guardian of space refuses to share.
A few years ago, I was driving to our home in central Indiana, with my daughters strapped into their seats in back for the hour and a half ride, after visiting my mother's side of the family in southern Indiana. The drive started out rather uneventful until my youngest daughter, around two years old at the time, managed to create discord when we were halfway home. Not due to her acting up, out of boredom or whatever, but because she allowed the car's motions and humming lull her to sleep.
"MoOom! She's bothering me," my second oldest child, then 6-years in age, whined from the middle of the back seat.
"Who is?"
"She is," came the accusation. I looked in the rear view mirror to see her pointing in the sleeping child's direction.
"She's sound asleep! How on earth is she bothering you," I asked curiously.
"She's breathing on me," she replied with a firm crossing of her arms, "and she knows that I don't like her doing that."
"But she is sound asleep," I repeated.
"Doesn't matter, she still knows I don't like her breathing on me. She's doing it on purpose - I know she is!"
"Honestly, Hon, the child is fast asleep and not even knowing we are talking about her. So how can she purposefully turn her head to knowingly breath on you?"
"Oh all right, be that way and take her side - just because she is the "baby" she can get away with anything . . ."
"I did not say that. I fail to see how her being the baby of the family has anything to do with this. All I said is she is sound asleep so likely has no idea she turned her head in your direction. Why don't you just reach over and turn her head away from you?"
"Now you having me do stuff for her," the 6-year-old asked in a scathing yet incredulous tone of voice. "She knew before she fell asleep not to breathe on me! Why can't she turn her own head?"
"I'm just saying it may have been totally accidental," I replied. "She's asleep and so may not know she turned her head to begin with…"
"She can turn her own head," came the stubborn response. "I've told her enough times before to not breathe on me so she knows I don't like her doing it."
"But, because she is sound asleep, she may not be aware that she is breathing into your sacred space of the back seat." I hoped this time my words would sink into the 6-year-old's head and have her realize what was actually happening versus how she saw it.
"Oh, she knows all right. She always knows what to do to bother me."
"Just turn her head away from you," I said while skipping sharing, once more, about the younger child being sound asleep therefore oblivious to anything going on around her.
"Why should I do it for her when she was the one who turned her head to breathe on me in the first place? Make her do it herself."
I recognized this was a losing battle with limited options available on my side: throw in the towel or continue the above dialogue's pattern for the next 50 miles. I did what any parent would do if in my shoes; I pulled the car onto the side of the highway then turned around in my seat to adjust the sleeping child's head to a less offending position.
"There," I said as while resettling myself behind the steering wheel again and putting the car back into gear. "We should not have any more problems about breathing unless the window wants a chance to gripe about someone's breathing habits."
"Only if it doesn't like her breathing on it either," came a response from the middle of the back seat. She always tries to get in the last word if she can. I have no idea where she inherited that.
About This Story's Author:
© 1999-2006 Carol Wells
Humor Is Relative's Top 12 Popular Stories:
I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies)
[Laurie Notaro; 240 pages]
Laurie shares self-critical humor while writing about QVC obsessed relatives, the not so there grandparents, and a group of friends we need to keep forever because they know far too much as she enters her mid-thirties. Can you relate?
Indexed Humorous Family Stories Submissions:
2001 __ 2002 __ 2003 __ 2004 __2005 __ 2006
When the guy who made the first drawing board got it wrong, what did he go back to?
--Steven Wright
All children, except one, grow up.
-- J. M. Barrie Peter Pan
Think you have a funny story about your family, or moments in parenting, that our readers may enjoy? Review Humor Is Relative submissions guidelines & submit your story! Who knows, we just may like it!
To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know
what we do not know, that is true knowledge.
-- Nicolaus Copernicus [attrib.]
Meet Humor Is Relative's contributing writers!
Every man has a right to utter what he thinks as truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it.
-- Samuel Johnson