Driving Miss Sophie

By Dave Barry

One of these days, a police officer is going to pull me over 
for driving erratically. He will suspect that I am driving 
while intoxicated, but he will be wrong. In fact, I will be 
driving while being a little teapot. I am often a little teapot 
while driving. This is because when my 20-month-old daughter is 
in the car, she demands to hear her favorite CD, "Traditional 
Children's Songs From Hell." At least that's what I call it. 
It's one of those CDs with those old songs that we are required 
by federal law to expose our children to, because they connect us 
with a time when we were a simpler, happier, much stupider nation.

Consider "Old MacDonald." It starts out fine: "Old MacDonald had 
a farm." But then it goes to "E-I-E-I-O," as though the lyricist had 
a bunch of extra vowels he needed to get rid of before moving on 
with the plot. Couldn't he have come up with words for the second 
line? How hard is it to think of a line that rhymes with "farm"? 
For example: "Thresher tore off his left arm."
Or: "Slept with six goats to keep warm."

But "Old MacDonald" is Handel's "Messiah" compared with "She'll 
Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain," a song apparently written by 
somebody with a life-threatening case of Attention Deficit Disorder, 
as we see by the highly informative first verse:

"She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes!

"She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes!

"She'll be comin' 'round the mountain!

"She'll be comin' 'round the mountain!

"She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes!"

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: Will she be comin' 'round the mountain? 
When?

I am forced to listen to these brain-shriveling songs constantly when 
I drive. I'm so used to hearing them that sometimes I'll be halfway 
to the airport, singing, "The wheels on the bus go round and round, 
round and round, round and round," when suddenly it dawns on me: 
Sophie is not in the car. I can play my own music, with intelligent 
lyrics!

(Example: "I said na, na na na na, na na na na, na na na, na na na, 
na na na na!")

The biggest problem with children's songs is that many of them call 
for actions on the part of the listeners. My daughter, who is very 
strict, expects everybody to perform these actions. So if we're 
listening to "I'm a Little Teapot," and she notices that I'm using my 
arms for some frivolous activity such as steering, she will repeat, 
"Daddy do it! Daddy do it!" until I let go of the wheel and form my 
teapot handle and my teapot spout. I have discovered that I can, 
in fact, steer with my forehead, but visibility is a problem.

I am also forced to drive while doing the Hokey Pokey and making 
the Itsy Bitsy Spider go up the water spout. But the worst song, 
from a driving standpoint, is "Where Is Thumbkin?" This is the one 
where you sing about, and display one at a time, the various fingers 
on your hand: Thumbkin, Ring Man, Pointer, etc. As you can 
imagine, this can create misunderstandings in traffic when your 
fellow motorists see you holding up Tall Man. I live in Miami, 
a heavily armed area, and I'm concerned that one of these days,
some stressed-out driver is going to see me displaying Tall Man, 
and he's going to respond with: Trigger Man.

Yes, a small child can get you into trouble, and not just in a car.
There is a house in our neighborhood that has a large plaster 
goose on the front porch. For reasons known only to her, my 
daughter loves this goose. Whenever we walk past it, she toddles 
up onto the porch and gives it a kiss, while I watch nervously from 
the sidewalk. Lately my daughter has started insisting, with 
increasing vehemence, that I also kiss the goose. So one recent
Sunday morning -- I am not making this up -- I found myself, 
heart pounding, tiptoeing onto a porch belonging to complete 
strangers, bending over, and kissing their goose. This kind of thing 
can lead to trouble. 

POLICE OFFICER: Hold it right there, mister! Put your hands up 
and step away from that goose.

ME: You don't understand! I was just . . .

POLICE OFFICER: Wait a minute . . . You're the same guy I saw 
holding up Tall Man on the expressway!

But getting arrested is a small price to pay for the joys of 
parenthood.
I know you parents out there agree. You're happy, right? Sure you 
are! If you're happy, and you know it, clap your hands!

I'd clap with you, but it hurts, with these handcuffs.