Our two high school age daughters are just beginning their spring soccer season through the small school that they attend. It’s a very small school, and fairly new, so soccer practice looks something like this – go to a local park to practice, go to another local gym for showers, and then go to school. Driving to three different locations each morning of soccer practice makes it difficult for working parents to get their daughters from place to place to place. Thus, my girls – who live out of town and have to drive themselves – end up being the “chauffeur” many times. An older sister filled that roll for the last couple of years, but with the advent of her departure for college, my seventeen year old, Lydia, has ended up with the job this year.
Life is always a little nerve-racking for a mom whose teenager is now DRIVING, but then to also know that they are driving with one of their siblings, as well as a couple of other friends in the car…let’s just say it makes for even more prayers being randomly and desperately tossed up to God.
So imagine my chagrin when these two sisters walked in the door from school the other day, and the first thing out of Lydia’s mouth is, “Oh mom, a very sad story happened on the way to school today!”
However, I barely had time to take a deep cleansing breath before our other teenager, Tabitha, piped in, “Oh no, it wasn’t sad – it was hilarious!”
They proceeded to tell me the story of the “good” squirrel and the “bad” squirrel.
It all happened within the few moments that it took Lydia to pull out of her parking spot at the park, and drive down the entranceway to the street. As she was leaving the park, a cute little frisky squirrel dashed out into the driveway. Girls in the car began screaming, “No, no, STOP! You can’t hit the cute little squirrel!”
Lydia was on the ball, and had already slowed to a near stop. “Don’t worry,” she said, “I LOVE squirrels, and I certainly would never run over one. Besides, I’ve never killed an animal in my LIFE!”
The squirrel made it safely to the other side of the road, girls in the car sat back with a sigh of relief, and Lydia began driving again. Then it happened. Out of nowhere, another squirrel (apparently with kamikaze tendencies) darted out and dashed directly into the path of Lydia’s accelerating car. This little car sits about six inches off the ground, so you can imagine all the thump, thump, thumping that occurred underneath it – and a massive amount of girls screaming, “AAAaaaaaagh!” inside of it.
Immediately someone suggested that in order to set aright this terrible deed, they must stop the car and go bury the squirrel. Another girl (apparently using more logic than sentiment) stated that if they were to do that, they would definitely be late for school. Someone came up with a solution.
“Okay, “she began, “We can’t begin our day feeling like we’re squirrel murderers, so we must believe that the first squirrel was a very nice, good squirrel…and the second squirrel was a terribly bad, mean squirrel that was out to get the good squirrel. So, we just saved the good squirrel from certain death.”
Ah, the dastardly deeds that can be thwarted with a car, on the way to school…who would have thought?