First published in the Tri-Town Transcript, 9/07/18
By Esther Baird
Fine. By the time you read this column, summer will be over. But as I am writing this over at our family camp on Lake George, it’s still on. For three more days.
It was a busy summer. Besides the tour de’ New England I completed most weekends, I also have been writing a Christmas Advent book due to come out, in a shocking twist, by Christmas time. So even at the lake, I’ve needed to find a few hours to study, write and edit. And on this final trip, when we realized that I packed peanut butter but not jelly, gluten-free bread but not wheat bread, and zero lunch meat, I sighed.
Trips to the store from our cabin are either a great rainy day way to kill two hours, or they truly just kill two hours. But we only had three days left of summer!!! Two hours was time I didn’t want to lose to logistical tedium.
I bargained with the girls.
“I can make you a peanut butter quesadilla!! I have tortillas, just not bread!” I tried with my younger, wheat-eating, daughter.
And to our eldest, a newly minted 14-year-old, I explained, “We have your gluten free bread and I know you don’t like peanut butter, but what if we sprinkle it with cheese and make cheesy toast??”
She didn’t argue. Instead she said, “Or, I can go get the stuff.”
I laughed. I mean, the giant box store is 20 solid minutes away if you’re driving fast, and while the local store is only 3 miles away, it’s a dangerous road and not walkable. Then I realized what she meant. She smiled as it dawned on me. I hurriedly wrote down the list and handed her my credit card. She grabbed her phone, the key, and took off. Crazy? Some backwater law in upstate New York?
Nope, because she also grabbed a life jacket. Oh sweet NY state boater’s licenses. They only require seven hours of your life in a numbingly detailed online class, (seriously ask me about Y valves or bilge pumps) a 77-question test, and… that you are the amazing age of 14.
Our daughter spent the spring taking the class, and spent the summer celebrating her birthday. Girlfriend had her boater’s license and we had a jet ski!! Even better, the nearby town had a public dock right by the local market.
I was free!!! I had a kid who could drive!! Was this what life would be like when she turned 16? Sending her off on errands, picking up her sister, handing her my credit card… OK that part needed some tweaking.
She left on the jet ski and I got back to work in our cabin overlooking the lake, breeze blowing and dogs calmly lying at my feet (ha ha, that was a joke, Moose was calm for about two minutes). But mostly, I was NOT running errands.
She texted about 15 minutes later. “Stopped to get gas, remembered to tip the boat boy.”
Ten minutes later I got another text. “Made it to town, tied up at dock, headed to store. Noticed we are out of quarter-gallon zippy bags so I’ll get some.”
It’s possible I swooned from sheer joy. What was this feeling?? Every single tedious thing I ever had to do for the rest of my life could now be outsourced!!! Or at least a few things!! The world was my oyster. I had a child who not only noticed the state of our zippy bag drawer, but now had the power in her newly licensed teenaged hands to fix it.
About 20 minutes later, she came back. Nothing had gone wrong. Everything had been taken care of, and I hadn’t moved an inch.
“I’m back! It was so easy and fun!” She said happily.
“Yes!!” I agreed gleefully. “That’s exactly what running errands is always like!!” I smiled at her possibly a bit like a cat smiles at, well, you know.
Don’t worry, dear Regular Readers who have 16-year-olds. I do understand this is not the same as your teenager driving a ton of steel at 55 mph in Massachusetts where the drivers are absolutely unhinged. But it’s also not same as it was a mere few days ago. Because now I have a teenaged driver, and I’m not running errands to the store… at least not for the entire full rest of this summer.