My mom got stuck in the car.

I’m not joking.

Let me explain. I have six seats in my car. Well, technically, there are seven, but three of them have car seats in them, and car seats take up a lot of room, so I disregard the middle seat between two of them. So, two adults can sit in the front. Two car seats are in the middle row.  One car seat is in the back. And while I usually lay the other back seat flat, I can unfold it for another adult seat. 

It didn’t make sense to have my mom wiggle her way back there, but my daughter was going to be getting in and out, so Mom insisted my daughter ride in the front. It wasn’t too hard for Mom to settle into the back. The problem was she sat there for several hours. She sat while we drove through an animal park, and she sat while the rest of us walked through a smaller portion of it. Then we picked up lunch and took it back to the house. 

Each of the kids got out, then Mom started to get out. The combination of stiff muscles, the incline of the seat, nothing to get the right grip on, and a somewhat inflexible shoulder and knee made it challenging. But I think what made it the most challenging was our laughter. We couldn’t stop. The more she tried, the more we laughed. At one point, she declared, “Just get me a blanket and some food, because I’m just going to stay in here until we go home.”

We still had two nights before we headed home.

It’s a good thing she escaped the vehicle. We had to remove a car seat (which gave me an opportunity for a quick clean), making room for better leverage. It took about 30 minutes in total, but I’ll reduce it to 10, because the majority was filled with laughter. 

It’s a good memory. It’s also a good illustration. Sometimes we get ourselves into a situation that we work ourselves into. It’s not easy, but we’re determined. We want to make something work. We do. We’re glad. We’re satisfied. But getting out is another story. You’ve seen it before. A child sticks their head between two spindles on the stairs but can’t seem to get it out. Someone shimmies into a tight space but can’t seem to move backward to get out. You work your hand into a tight space but can’t work it back out. 

Those are the physical challenges. What about the emotional ones? We really want a specific job, relationship, outcome, influence, opportunity, and we bend and twist to get into the position, but once we’re there, we can’t get comfortable. We need to shift and possibly even move backward or forward. But we seem to be stuck. It’s a lot more work than we thought. And it might not be quite as entertaining as it was for my mom and me. 

My mom is glad she went with us that day, but I am sure of this: she will never get in the back seat of my car again.

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