Julia frantically brushed the pine needles off my car, her arms flailing with an urgency normally reserved for blocking shots on the basketball court. For a moment I thought she was helping me from having a pine needle induced accident on the road.

Mommy’s little helper?

No.

Mommy’s little conformist.

“You need to start parking in the garage Mom,” says my out of breath and exasperated eighth grader. Your car is a mess!”

I have a garage. I actually have 2 garages. I still leave my car out in the driveway sometimes, like last night, when it rained that kind of autumn rain which blows leaves and pine needles off the trees and onto the ground, or anything else left outside.

It’s no distraction to me at all. They cover the windshield and the windows and the moon roof of my little SUV (aka the station wagon of the 21st century). By the time I get to work, the morning breeze and the highway sun will have blown my car dry better than my hair was blown dry before I left the house.

However, that quarter of a mile to school, which she does not have to walk, by the way, is not enough time to remove the tell tale signs from the night before — an un-garaged car.

This shame holds true for more than pine needles – also for frost, ice, snow or anything else Mother Nature dishes out the night before or the morning of.

Again, I am haunted by that no-talent hip hop group – the Uthah Muthas. They are the ‘normal’ parents who do not embarrass their children, but merely stand mutely in the background offering unlimited supplies of money and transportation. Transportation in normal cars, I’ll have you know. Fiends.

“You’re the only one at drop off with pine needles on your car. Everyone else’s car is clean.”

“Really, you notice these things?”

“Yes! I do. You always have ice, or something all over. And you can never even see. Why do you always have to be so weird?!”

Maybe I’m a little off, but I enjoy stepping outside to see what’s been left for me each morning, usually pretty designs made by Jack Frost and his gang start about this time of year. So we have to scrape a little, just enough to see to get her that quarter of a mile, that, as I believe I’ve mentioned, she does not have to walk, down the road. So what if there are a few coppery needles decorating my dark brown car? I enjoy fall colors.

I like to Park at the top of the driveway each night, because each night the beagle, the only one truly happy to see me, comes running out, and she can’t reach the garage to greet me, jump all over me, and yelp like she’s trying to get me to the Old Mill to save Timmy. And she’s kind of afraid of the garage door anyway. I do it for the beagle.

Maybe there are better mothers out there. But even though I’m not the best mother, I’ll never EVER be one of the Uthah Muthas.