There must be a light under the bushel!

The Torture Chamber

It all began with a list. A list seems non-threatening. There's certainly no reason to be concerned about a simple grocery list. It truly should be harmless. Try telling that to two grown men who had to ride in the backseat for an entire three and a half hour road trip.

KB and I began this list a month ago. We rented a condo on the beach and, as women do, we were planning all the details to make the trip go smoothly. We asked the guys if they wanted any input on the list. They scoffed at us. There were probably even eye rolls involved. They simply could not understand how we could have enjoyed talking about this trip for the last six months. And now we wanted to make a grocery list a month before the trip?

"We'll just decide when we get there," said Pierre. KB and I exchanged knowing, pitying glances.

July 1st rolled around, much to our excitement. Before Pierre showed up, KB put a bunch of her stuff in the front passenger seat. I was driving, and she wanted to make sure her position went unchallenged. She had already taken care of her husband, Mike, when she reminded him how miserable she would make everyone in the car if she didn't get her way. She promised to spend the entire ride leaning over the console between the two front seats asking, "What?" every time someone said something. Everyone knew she was not kidding.

Mike, being the easygoing, free-spirited, non-confrontational person he is, quickly relented from any designs he had on the front seat. Pierre was the one KB saw as her true nemesis, but she wasn't about to negotiate. So, the boys got the back seat. But, each of them generously offered to drive if, at any point, I got tired or needed a break. I had to suppress a giggle at the not-so-subtle attempts to gain their rightful, manly place behind the wheel. It was particularly humorous that they each came to me separately, sounding oh-so-very offhand. I politely told them I had it covered. It's great to have the SUV with the luggage rack!

Anyway, on to the back seat. Mike and I had a couple of conversations trying to figure out what happened. We had to find a reasonable excuse to explain what came over the boys. I was telling this story to the Salvos' fifteen year-old son, Zach, and he couldn't believe his dad's behavior. He said he'd never seen his dad act like that. Pierre was no better. Once we hit the three hour mark, something permeated the back seat and turned the boys into strange beings. Here's the deal. They played out the grown men version of "Are we there yet?" They started shifting around and whining about how long they'd been cooped up. Every time there was silence, Mike interjected with, "I'm hungry. I want a sandwich." It was a strangley whiny, high-pitched sound that I'd never heard from him before.

Maybe you have to understand something here. I've never seen Mike impatient in all the years I've known him. Now, he might mosey a bit and make other people impatient, but he's certainly never antsy or demanding. No, you still don't understand! He was petulant. His lower lip even stuck out as he formed the words. As we recounted this story to Zach, he was confused. Surely, we could not have been talking about his dad. Some evil forces must have been at play. Mike and I explored what could have caused this strange behavior. The answer came to us; it was the back seat. Children everywhere get this syndrome. Maybe it's not the children's fault! Mike said he'd been caged too long. He said that when you're in the back seat, you can't really see out like the front passengers can, so you become locked into this suffocating cell. The leg room is also confining. We kept suggesting that the guys could put their legs up on each other. They didn't find that nearly as amusing as KB and I did.

Now the back seat syndrome doesn't necessarily end when the victims exit the back seat, especially if a return trip to the torture chamber is planned soon. Once we got to the grocery store to stock up for our vacation before we boarded the ferry, the grumbling only escalated.

"I'll come to the store every day to get the groceries. I don't see why we have to do this now," Pierre snarled.

Mike added, "Yeah. This is ridiculous." The back seat syndrome had not ended even though they were no longer in the car!

Once in the store, they were like men on a rescue mission that had to be carried out within 15 minutes to keep the world from destructing. They approached KB, who had the list, and they were poised on the balls of their feet. They had their super-fast, turbo-charged superman shoes on; they were ready to conquer the store. They approached the commander for their missions and carried them out quickly and flawlessly. They were such dedicated soldiers that they kept coming back for more orders until, finally, the grocery basket was full and we were ready to check out.

There were lots of comments about how we would never eat that amount of food in four days. Never mind that we were feeding six adults. They had detemined that we were unreasonable, evil women who were the puppetmasters of their worst torture. Again, I had to giggle as they each came to me separately in the store to officially file their complaints. They each wanted to make absolutley sure that I heard their dire predictions of how this torture was all for naught.

As we approached the SUV, KB and I had to take matters into out own hands. We detected resistance. Our soldiers were about to go AWOL. We saw the wild looks of fear in their eyes; only the white parts were showing, so we shoved our bayonets into their backsides...Ok, so now I'm exaggerating, but they didn't rest easy until they were finally released from their bondage for an indefinite period of time. Oh, and they did eventually thank us for our forethought in stocking up the kitchen!