Out of the mouths of my babes

I pick up my friend's daughter, Sydney, from the bus stop each week and transport her home. The days vary depending on my friend's work schedule. She lives a little over 2.5 miles from the bus stop, and it is pretty much a straight, uncomplicated shot to her neighborhood. Once I peel out of the grassy knoll where I am now forced to park to wait for the bus due to an overzealous, nagging, nothing-better-to-do neighbor who tired of his area used as a bus stop, I have to stop at a four way stop. This stop is an odd one because their is a grassy divider between the four lanes, a crosswalk for school children going one way, and so drivers really have to pay attention and look for cars and pedestrians in the opposite direction.

The last day of the holidays I was taking her home, approaching the stop area, when several cars suddenly came to an abrupt stop in front of me causing me to lay on my brakes. I put out my arm and crossed it over Sydney pushing her back against the seat. She gave me one of her you-are-so-weird teenager sideways looks, and I snickered. I told her how "back in the old days" when no one wore the attached over the lap seat belts our mothers would use this technique to save us from going into the dash at sudden stops.

Sydney: "Really? I am wearing a seat belt."
Me: "I know. I was kidding. I was trying to see if maybe this was just a mother's response seat belt or not."
Sydney: "You're weird."
Me: "And that is why you love me. That, and the fact that I just kept you from hitting the dash."

Over the holidays I was a passenger in my youngest daughter's car. Rarely am I because it makes me too damn nervous, but since I've started research into writing romance novels my head is always in my Kindle app on my phone reading. It makes it smoother for both of us when I'm not looking out the window, although I feel I offer sound driving advice when I do. Shades of my father.

At some point, while she drove, and I read she had to slam on her brakes. As she did so, her arm shot out across my chest, pressing me back into the passenger seat. I turned to her, mouth agape.

Darcy: "Oh, sorry. I forgot."
Me: "Forgot what? That I was wearing a seat belt? This is so weird. I just did this to Sydney the other day in the car, telling her how that's what mother's use to do back in my day."
Darcy: "What? I just did it because it was automatic."
Me: "Automatic?"
Darcy: "Yeah, I'm use to my backpack sitting in that seat, and that's what I do so it doesn't go flying on to the floor."