Message Transmission

Just the other day I was walking down my street with the kids, and we were about ten feet away from a four-way intersection.  A red car, presumably driven by one of the local college students, was coming up to the intersection as well.  The driver, a young woman, put on her left turn signal, and slowed down just enough to make the turn without squealing the tires.

As a mother, my temper boiled.  My three year-old son was walking beside me and usually runs right up to the intersection, if not directly into it.  And while the stop signs are not there solely for my child's safety, they do help keep him out of harm's way when car and pedestrian approach the intersection at the same time.  This, of course, only works when the driver actually stops like the sign commands.

Thankfully, my son didn't run towards the intersection that time, and we were all kept scotch-free.  As she was speeding away, I mentioned to my son that some people obviously couldn't read English, and that some people simply don't understand how to stop their cars.  (To which he replied, "Do I know English?")

It just so happened that the full-speed driver was headed to the same place we were.  We were off to the college mail room to send a package, and just as we got there, she was on her way out the door.

It's times like these that I think of a parent's ability to send and receive messages through our children....  I was very tempted to say to my son, "yes, some people don't know how to stop at stop signs."  This message would then get relayed to the non-law-abiding driver as we walked passed her on our way inside the mail room.  At his age, my son does not simply listen to what I tell him, but he often repeats it.  And, he is also apt to stare at people walking by us.  So, based on the knowledge that I have of my son's habits, I was sure that with a well-timed comment to him about bad driver's, he could transfer the message directly to the person who recently almost ran us over.

And I was sure she'd get the point.

But, instead I just mumbled my frustrated thoughts as my son repeated over and over, "What? What did you say mom??"  Finally I told him what I had said, and, as expected, he loudly repeated my comment.  Crazy driver was out of ear-shot by that point.  I did still gain some sense of satisfaction at the thought of her going red at my son's comments about her bad driving....even if it was only in my imagination.

Maybe if we're lucky, she felt some sense of guilt at just seeing us there at the mailroom--perhaps a reminder that we were still alive, no thanks to her...