Taking the car for a ride…
“So, what did you end up doing today?” I asked Corinne, my sixteen-year-old.
“Well, it was such a beautiful day, I was going to go ride my bike and get some exercise – but I decided instead just to take the car for a ride and roll down the windows.”
She said it so casually too, like “taking the car for a ride” was just a modern form of mindfulness. Like she had participated in a spiritual ritual of deeply inhaling spring air while seated in climate-controlled comfort, surrounded by airbags.
I thought back when she used to run everywhere, all the time, as a toddler—headed full tilt to nowhere bound with unlimited energy. And now, as a teenager, the idea of pedaling her way to fitness is usurped by the much more appealing plan of sitting perfectly still and letting a motor do the work, as long as she can approximate the breeze.
I nodded slowly and offered a neutral, maternal “Hmm,” which in motherhood is code for “I’m deciding whether this is one of the moments I’ll bring up in your wedding toast.”
But truly, how could I not admire the efficiency? Why sweat when you can simulate?
She gave me a smile, the kind that says she is either totally unaware of the absurdity of what she just said, or completely aware of and wondering how far she can go before I before I abandon logic entirely.
So, in the end, the car got mileage, the bike got ignored, and Corinne got to say she “got outside.” The kind of reasoning only a teenager can toss about like its common sense and you’re the one who doesn’t get it.
©Momories 2025
