Sep 13, 2002 4 min read

A few days after Daughter No. 2 was granted the privilege to drive by the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, she and her best friend decided that there was no way they could double date for the prom as both their dates had two-door sports cars. Neither one of them was willing to crawl into a backseat in a gown. So they asked permission to take my four-door car. No. 2 wanted it to sparkle, but without all the hard labor involved, so she drove it to an automatic car wash and pulled in the wrong way, blowing out one of the tires. That was four years and 15 tires ago. But who’s counting? She reminds me that four of those tires weren’t her fault as a boy who stalked her flattened them overnight while parked in the driveway.

Nonetheless it cost me money. No. 2 has long since stopped looking at me as her personal tire replacement source but I must still endure the complaints, the minute details of her latest flat tire, the painstaking details of how and where she changed it that I’m sure take longer for her to retell than it did to switch tires.

Others find these stories entertaining. But then they aren’t her mother.

I sometimes think that she must have a strong magnetic field radiating from each pore that attracts every rogue nail lying harmlessly upon the roadway until she nears. At which point the nail stands erect ready to puncture her tire.

So the other morning when a co-worker came into the office and told me that the rear passenger tire on my car looked low and that I might want to have it checked, I immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was all No. 2’s fault.

I stopped at a service station and later that evening when she needed to run a quick errand and asked if she could take my car as her keys were upstairs, I said, “What are you nuts? I just put air in those tires. You’ll flatten them. You are not permitted to even look at my car, let alone touch it.”

I will not trouble you, dear reader, with details of the blow out that followed my harsh statement other than to admit that in the span of less than three minutes all past transgressions committed by either party were examined for the injuries inflicted. Nos. 3 and 4 merely stood by with mouths agape never having witnessed such a barrage before.

Where did that come from? What, I wondered in the aftermath, possesses us at times when we feel the worst to strike out for the silliest reasons at the ones we love the most.

How often has the cleaner of the house complained about grubby fingerprints, muddy shoes and unmade beds? How worse though it would be if those fingerprints were to disappear forever, for those shoes never again to cross the threshold and for that bed to be left untouched?

This week has served as a reminder of how swiftly life can change. That the unimaginable can happen in an instant and people who mean a great deal to us are lost forever.

So why do we snap at each other, nag about coats that are dropped on the floor and argue over whose job it is to carry out the garbage? Who cares?

I have acquaintances who obsess over dust bunnies and ironing. These women believe that the cleanliness of their homes, and the wrinkle-free appearance of their men and children are a direct reflection of their worth. They worry about what others must think of them if they fail at this quest for perfection so they argue with the mates and kids to achieve this goal.

What they fail to understand is that few people care to judge them this way. We are all too busy trying to pick up the clutter littering our own lives to even notice another’s layer of dust.

The dishes will wait an hour or two. But cool evenings and pink skies made just for walks and talks won’t. Sometimes we need a gentle reminder, that sticky fingers still feel warm when wrapped inside our grownup hands for way too soon they slip from our grasp and venture off on their own; that muddy boots dropped in a spot to trip over are a welcome sight because they brought the wearer home and that there are far, far worse things to happen than a flat tire.

Luanne Traud is the Herald-Standard’s editorial page editor.

E-mail: ltraud@heraldstandard.com.