T O D A Y

Drama Queen candidates
Bad trips

Contestant No. 1
Contestant No. 2
Contestant No. 3

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R E C E N T L Y

Censorship and sensibility
By Inda Schaenen
Should kids be able to read anything they want?
(07/17/98)

Slice of life
By Maurine Shores
Memories of a cake that tasted like summer
(07/16/98)

A counterculture childhood
By Lisa Michaels
In an excerpt from her new book, the author remembers being 3 years old and waving a Viet Cong flag
(07/15/98)

Beach babble on
By Polly Shulman
A selection of books immerses kids in a wetter, wavier world
(07/14/98)

A masterful Machiavellian matriarch
By Lesley Gold
For 24 years Rep. Pat Schroeder cleaned two houses
(07/13/98)

ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

Gee, your hair smells terrific
By Michelle Stein

At a glance we looked like the perfect happy family on a wonderful trip to Grandma's house ... mother, father, two pretty teenage daughters and an adorable, chubby 1-year-old baby boy in between, a gleaming white Jaguar, so well kept it sparkles. If you looked closely, though, you'd see there was trouble on the road ahead to grandmother's house.

We left at 10 a.m. on a beautiful breezy summer day. We drove inland to hook up with Interstate 5, the major north-south highway that travels right through the Central Valley. This is the premiere agricultural area of the world. It is also unrelentingly boring and hot. But it is the quickest route from San Francisco to Los Angeles, about six hours. As we entered the valley we were blissfully ignorant to the rising temperature: We have air conditioning.

After an hour of listening to Raffi, Boy George and sundry complaining noises from the back seat, the great man, the patriarch of this road show, spoke, "Uh, I think we have a big problem." As he said this he tapped the temperature gauge. I looked over to see that the car was absolutely, totally redlining. It couldn't have been hotter. We figured we'd better turn on the heater because we had heard, who knows where, that if you turn the heater on it'll pull the heat off the engine and give you time to get to the next gas station. Of course the next station was at least 15 miles down the road. My toes felt it first: They were on fire. The feeling moved up my foot to my ankle, then my legs. As I became aware of being completely enveloped in heat, so did the kids. The whining increased to a steady wail of complaint. We would soothe them and explain, but then the heat would overwhelm them again.

When we reached the gas station we found out why this was happening. It was no cooler outside the car than inside. It was 112 degrees. Mystery solved. There was nothing wrong with the car. It was a Jaguar, an English car. In England a heat wave is 78 degrees and moderate clouds. It simply wasn't made to drive on an American road in high summer. But we wouldn't let this little difficulty deter us from our trip down I-5. We let the car cool, added antifreeze and bought huge blocks of ice to rest our feet on. If we had to drive with the heater on then at least we might stay cool. All the interior rugs were a small price to pay. We continued, heater on, windows open, pumping the kids full of liquids. The upside to the unrelenting heat was that the girls were too exhausted to fight with one another and my son didn't want to rip the car-seat straps off and run along the highway anymore. See, there is always an upside.

We stopped every 40 to 60 miles to let it cool and replenish the antifreeze. I have no idea if this was good or even necessary but it seemed the right thing to do. It also let us buy more ice. We were somehow able to get over the mountains of the Grapevine without a total meltdown and arrived in Los Angeles 14 hours after we had left our home. We were limp, swollen and red-faced. Our car spent the next three days in the shop. My husband and I managed to stay out of all family disagreements and between this accomplishment and the saga of the car we felt that we could take on the world. We paid the mechanic $650 and left for home.

Now, I don't know why we went on Interstate 5 again. It must have been this sense of invincibility. The cool coast road would've only taken another hour. As we left the truck-stop town of Castaic and started the long climb up through the mountains on the Grapevine, the car did exactly what it had done before, only faster. This time we knew it was going to die. There was a groan of disgust that we were right back where we had been days before, in our own hell on earth. We stopped at the only tree along miles and miles of barren, hot highway. My son was bouncing and barely able to be restrained, my daughters were fighting with one another and my husband and I sat, beaten, under that tree. The heat was relieved by the wonderful strong breezes of the huge trucks flying by.

Within the hour a tow truck pulled up. He took a look at the car and said, "Oh, you'll never make it over the top. This car will melt." How enlightening. He towed us over to the southbound lanes so that we could go, downhill, to Castaic. There, we ate while the car cooled.

Starting out again, we took U.S. Highway 101, which avoids the heat of the Central Valley. Again, we stopped often to let the car cool down. When we finally neared San Luis Obispo, we successfully went uphill and inland. I can't convey the absolute joy that we felt. For the first time in five days I stopped fantasizing about the sledgehammer I would buy upon our return. It was now dark and our car was cool. The kids were quiet and we allowed ourselves to breathe. We actually got to breathe for about 20 minutes. Then the baby started to complain, quick short cries to begin with. Working up to an angry howl. I looked to my husband, my sweet, unflappable husband and he growled, "I'M NOT PULLING OVER, no matter what happens, I'M NOT PULLING OVER." It seems he had the home stretch in mind and would not be deterred. I leaned into the back seat and, figuring he had a dirty diaper, I leaned over him to do a quick smell test. At that moment my son vomited pickles, chocolate shake and yogurt (all the food we'd been feeding him) right into my hair. Voluminous vomit. The teenage girls did just what was expected -- they started to scream. Blood-curdling screams. I sat back down in my seat and, vomit dripping, said, "Honey, you really DO need to pull over." He growled again, "I WILL NOT PULL OVER." I did the only thing that I could and started to laugh. Deep from my soul came the biggest laugh I've ever had. The girls were horrified by my laughter. I'm sure they thought I had gone mad. I hadn't. I was laughing at my arrogance for thinking that the worst was behind us. I found it the funniest experience of my life to be trapped in a car with three (really) screaming children, dripping vomit and with my usually rational husband being completely irrational. The girls persuaded their father to pull over. I cleaned us all up the best I could without water and we continued our northward journey. Nobody said a word. The silence was borne of exhaustion and fear. Fear that if we did anything, even the smallest thing, our world would tilt to chaos once again.

Somewhere between Monterey and San Jose I reached up and touched my now dry hair. "Hey, this works better than mousse," I said (it was the '80s, after all). This comment so disgusted my daughters that my husband finally regained his composure and began to laugh. Anyone driving by would've seen a very happy family, beautiful children, great-looking car, happily married couple (and say, doesn't the wife have great hair?). For the most part, they'd be right.
SALON | July 21, 1998

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