Many years ago, I picked my wife up at her downtown office and we leisurely motored home. We talked about all the normal stuff, the kids, what we were going to do for dinner that night, when I was going to give the dog a much-needed bath, and how things had gone at work.
After getting off the freeway and crawling along Park Boulevard at the required 25 miles-per-hour, I put my blinker on, turned right, went past Westmore Oaks School, turned right again, and began to wheel into my driveway. Much to my surprise, in my rearview mirror, was a manned police motorcycle with a flashing blue light pulsating away. “Was I speeding or something?” I asked my wife, pointing out the policeman to her.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Maybe one of your brake lights isn’t working or something?”
We both got out of my truck, and I walked back to the officer and said as politely as I could, “Did I do something wrong?”
After he had secured his motorcycle, and with his ticket book in hand, he said, “You didn’t have your seat belt on. Could I please see your driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance?”
“Oh, sure,” I said as I quickly took out my wallet, handed him my license and called back to my wife, “Would you please get the car registration and my proof of insurance out of the glove compartment?”
She nodded that she would, stuck her head back into the truck, and began rummaging around in all the garbage that I keep in my glove compartment. When she didn’t seem to find what she was looking for right away, I hurried over to give her a hand. “Can’t you find them?” I whispered to her. “I think that policeman is getting just a little bit impatient.”
“No, Daryl,” said my wife, her expression suddenly anything but loving, “I can’t seem to find the car registration, but guess what, I did manage to find these!” She thrust a half-dozen or so bright red condom packages into my hand and added, “Now, would you care to explain what those things are doing in your glove compartment?”
Unable to swallow, much less come up with a quick and believable answer to her question, I finally managed to blurt out, “You know, I really don’t think I better keep that poor policeman waiting any longer. Why don’t we talk about this a little later, okay?”
“You’re darn right we’re going to talk about this later!” said my wife with emphasis as she stormed off towards the house and left me to do my own glove compartment searching.
When I finally handed my registration and proof of insurance over to the police officer, he seemed to be grinning, which led me to believe he may have overhead the conversation my wife and I had just concluded. “I’m just going to give you a warning this time,” he said, mercifully seeming to understand that I was already in plenty of trouble as it was. “Just make sure it doesn’t happen again, though,” he added, forcing back another smile as he put away his ticket book and stepped off towards his motorcycle.
Having dodged one bullet, I immediately went in search of my two oldest sons, aged 19 and 16, respectively. I found them in one of their bedrooms, listening to some of the most god-awful music imaginable. “Excuse me,” I said, motioning for them to turn down the radio, “but I was wondering if either one of you just might happen to know anything about these?” I held up the crinkled and tattered condom packages for them to see.
“Where’d you get those, dude?” asked my oldest son with a big grin.
“Well, your mother just found them in the glove compartment of my truck.” After they had both stopped laughing, which took awhile, I added, “You know, that very same pickup truck that you two like to cruise around in all the time.”
“Hey,” said my oldest son with conviction, “now don’t be blaming this on me. Those look like some of the skunkiest condoms I’ve ever seen. They must be at least ten years old. What do you think that I started having sex when I was nine?”
Realizing that my sons weren’t going to be able to get me off the hook, although one of them actually offered to take the fall for me, I decided to see if my worldly 23-year-old daughter had some advice and comforting words for me.
“You’re dead, Dad.”
“But I honestly don’t know how they got in there,” I said to my daughter. “People are always handing out condoms nowadays, and I’m always throwing things in my glove compartment. Maybe I got them when I was visiting the AIDS quilt or something.”
“I sure wouldn’t believe that if I was mom,” said my daughter with conviction.
“But that’s gotta be a lot more believable than a guy my age out having car sex, don’t you think?” I asked her.
“If I was you, Dad, I would just plead the 5th and hope for nothing more than the silent treatment for a while.”
Anyway, as I write this, I’m reminded of a very important lesson I learned that long ago day; ALWAYS WEAR YOUR SEAT BELT!