Breaking Curfew

My parents were pretty trusting of me and the boys I dated when I was a teen. I was never given a precise curfew. It was simply a given that we'd be home about an hour after the basketball game, or the dance, or the movie. That would give us time to go to Friendly's for ice cream or to Pittsfield with the rest of the gang for burgers at McDonald's.

While in high school, I really had no problem with this understanding. After all, there was the ever unanswered question, "What can you do after midnight that you can't do before?" I'm glad to say that I never figured that one out and they never had any real cause to worry about me. I didn't smoke, drink or...

When I went to college, I still lived at home. By then my friends, my dates, and I, had developed interests that meant traveling a bit farther down the road. We'd go to Greenfield to go dancing, or to Tanglewood to hear the Boston Pops. Mom and Dad still trusted me and I still had no curfew. I was asked however to call if we were going to be late.

Uh... there I wasn't always the perfect daughter. When you are twenty something and having a great time with a terrific date do you really want to have to go call Mommy? It's not like you could carry a phone in your purse of something.

So I'd get home later than the folks thought reasonable. And there, sitting in the living room, at three in the morning, was Mom. As I walked into the house she'd quietly close her book, get up from her chair, say good night, and start up the stairs, leaving me to turn off the lights. But when I'd begin to climb the stairs, there she would be at the top, and there she would give me...

The LOOK

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Somehow I managed to survive both The LOOK and my young adult years. I married my college sweetheart , helped him raise a family, and developed a reasonable Look of my own to cast upon my sons. Eventually we left the Muggle world (Harry Potter reference) and set forth into the magical world of the Blue Highways accompanied by Clancy, the Gourmet Wiener Dog.

Clancy usually knows what to expect from me. She knows I will feed her, and I will, take the darned sweater off her when we get inside. She trusts that if we commit the unforgivable offense of forgetting to take her with us in the Jeep we will come back before dark...most of the time.

Tonight we went out for pizza with about forty of our closest Workamper friends . We had a really great time -a really long great time.

And tonight when we drove in I saw something I haven't seen in 40+ years.
I saw:


(hangs head in shame)

See ya down the road,
Yarntangler