My brother calls from New York City on Saturday. Now, it's my rule never to pick up the phone while driving, especially while dizzily ensconced in a brand-new-to-me roundabout. But I break said rule because it's his son I am en route to pick up for the weekend while Bro and Wife get away for a necessary escape.
"I'm in Times Square!" he yells.
I'm in one of those jumbo plastic hamster balls. "I'm in a roundabout," I say.
"This place is mind-blowing! Is everything going OK?"
Since it is to be my first time babysitting my nephew -- and the first time babysitting, period, since eighth grade -- the whole extended family is simultaneously amused and freaked out at the thought of the non-maternal Mea Scatternoggen in charge of a human life.
"This place is awesome! We're going to the U.S. open tonight," comes the shout from my ear piece as the vertiginous non-landmarks of De Pere or Lawrence or Somewhere whiz past my windshield. "Do you have any questions about diapers? Because I'm sure you'll figure it out when you get there."
I shoot out the wrong leg of the cursed roundabout, into something half-resembling an industrial park whose other half resembles Farmer Brown's mud pen.
"Er, no. Just who the hell I am and how to get to Oshkosh."
Six roundabouts, two detours, much road construction and a wrong exit, followed by directions from a kid on a bicycle later, I arrive sweating and red-faced and 40 minutes late to the established halfway meeting point, which is the parking lot of Woodman's in Appleton.
I am a car seat virgin and am terrified it will explode. The seat will come undone and I will tie myself in knots trying to anchor it. I won't figure it out and will be tossed in the clink for carting a kid without proper safety restraints. I will be outside the car shucking scraps of hair out of my scalp while Nephew plays with the cute little button that locks all the doors. The car will roll down a hill with me hanging onto the bumper.
But boy strapped securely in and toddler paraphernalia securely loaded into 14-year-old sedan, Aunt Clueless and Nephew head off to Bro's house another 20 miles away. (After, of course, more roundabouts and side-street wrong-ways.)
I peer through the encrusted traces of ancient Trident obscuring my car's clock, which is four hours and 16 minutes behind anyway, thanks to several dead batteries (which were in turn thanks to more than several instances of leaving the dome light on or the door wide open).
#$%&*@#$*!!??! goes through my head. My relatively unworldly little brother, who flunked first grade and horked loogies on every sidewalk, finds his way to the City that Never Sleeps; meanwhile, I am bumbling my way to Oshkosh, Wis. (which is practically where we're from). From start to finish, the 70-mile schlep clocks in at three and a half hours.
Keeping track of the whereabouts of a non-verbal 4-year-old ought to be a cake walk.
