Ten and Two
When did we become passengers to our own creativity? It was probably when child restraint legislation was enacted in the 1980s.
I was born in 1966 and my brother was born in late 1967. We LOVED going into the way back of our Rambler station wagon to play as our parents drove. That was also the best place to be to get tossed around coming home from parties. Dad, probably of questionable sobriety, would take corners too fast. Mom would yell, but my brother and I would giggle as we quickly shifted to the other side of the station wagon yelling “do it again.”
Those were the days…that is until DVD players were installed in cars. Now strapped down kids can watch Finding Nemo instead of singing John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt and playing Punch Buggy. What parents forget is, where there is video, there will also be porn.
According to a recent AP/The Washington Post report, a driver in Schenectady, N.Y. was arrested last month passing a police vehicle while a DVD titled Chocolate Foam played on the passenger-side sun visor and headrests in his Mercedes. The driver was accused of breaking state laws prohibiting watching TV while driving, as well as another law making it illegal to exhibit sexually explicit material in a public place. The same thing happened to Andrea Carlton and her husband as they drove through a Chicago suburb, except they had to explain the porno playing in the other car to their 4 year-old daughter.
What I find disturbing in all this is the overt laziness and lack of imagination. I can’t conceive of watching a porno in a car. What happened to pausing a movie, making out, going to the kitchen and getting a ham sandwich, and going back for round two while the porno plays the boom-chica-boom-boom soundtrack in the background? The last time I was really horny in a car, my boyfriend got a 15 mile blowjob which culminated in emergency roadside assistance on Route 5. My head was hanging out of the back window like a golden retriever sniffing air. It was dark, but the trucker honks indicated they knew what we were up to. It didn’t take a movie showing in a visor to get us there.
I feel sorry for kids who have to watch Finding Nemo in a car, strapped down like a death row inmates. There’s no substitute for passenger interaction. Just ask my brother about Indian burns and titty twisters. The car was our second playground. Kids today get to enjoy cars as their mobile home theater. Some adults appear to enjoy their cars as mobile porn theater, which is OK, as long as they have tinted windows and keep their hands at ten and two.