Vehicular Grumpslaughter

Driving home in the dark from a Rosh Hashanah dinner across the river, I grip the steering wheel like a vise. My kid’s Grumpies threaten to smog up the universe. “I’m mad at you, Shannon,” he tells me. I am a terrible mother because I won’t reach across the car while navigating the Beltway in order to roll up the front window the last quarter inch. He is cold. He is yawning. All he had for dinner was one piece of challah, two slices of granny smith apple, and half a gallon of Sprite.

“All right. This ain’t working. I’m singing a song.” I don’t give him time to respond, because I know he’ll just grump out another no.

“I got me a cat and the cat please me, I fed my cat under yonder tree. Cat goes fiddle-dee-dee.” I work up through a goose and a turkey and even a kangaroo. Silence from the peanut gallery. Like so many forms of resistance, it is admirable, but ultimately futile. I start yet another verse, my throat getting sore. “I got me a. . . “

Interruption from the back: “Tree!”

“Okay. I got me a tree and the tree please me, I planted my tree under yonder tree. Tree goes. . .”

Spooky wind noises blow from the back seat. Now he is giggling. “I got me a lantern!” he snorts.

“Lantern goes. . .?”

“Flish-flash-flish-flash!”

“I got me a. . . ?”

“Flag!” He is barely able to spit it out, he is giggling so hard.

“Flag goes. . . ?”

Apparently, talking flags sound like lab rats. A squeak from the rear: “I’m an American flag! I’m an American flag!”

Like “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” this epic song requires working back down through the kangaroo and hen and cat after each addition. The task requires concentration I should be using to stay between the white lines, but my kid is in hysterics and we’re zipping homeward without a Grumpy in sight. He adds a caboose to the mix and then he announces, “I’m done with this song.” We have made it as far as the I-66 spur, but we still have miles to go. I start in on a new one.

“Bubbaduffy, you’re the one!” This, to the tune of Ernie’s “Rubber Duckie.”

“Bubba-duffy.” Bug coos. I can feel the shiver of ecstasy from the back seat.

Here’s a little context: Over the summer, Bug and I went to a housewarming barbecue for some new friends. It was sure to be a short visit. As the Rosh Hashanah shenanigans demonstrate yet again, my turbo-charged kid revs hard and stalls quick at a grownup gathering.

Back at the barbecue, a pair of chinchillas swooped in like a pit crew to keep my boy in top form.

Our friends have kept two of these little furballs from becoming someone’s winter hat. Chauncey and Bubbaduffy Snappytart (I’m dead serious) entertained Bug for the better part of an evening while the adults – even this one! – carried on conversations lasting more than 30 seconds. Bug fed the little guys yellow raisins, watched them take a bath in volcanic dust, and became the chinchilla ambassador to the assembled humans. To each new arrival: “Do you want to come meet the chinchillas?”

The Sesame Street-inspired ode to Bubbaduffy was born that night. It lives on (and on and on and on) into the dark months. It soothes the Grumpies when they start to rattle the cage.

Mid-song, Bug shouts from the back seat. “Not Bubbaduffy. Rubber duffy!”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah! So people will think he’s made out of rubber, not fur!” He cracks up. I swear, my kid is going to hyperventilate back there. We are off 66 now, aiming in the direction of our neighborhood.

“No, no,” he chokes. “Chilla-duffy!”

“Chilla, because he’s a chinchilla?”

“No. He’s going to put on some sunglasses and sit in a lawn chair because he’s chillin’!”

And here is where I run the car off the road and land us in a ditch. Almost. Apparently, the warmup act is done and the headliner has taken the mic.

“Rocka-duffy!” Bug shouts. “He’s a rock star chinchilla. Give him a guitar and a stage and he can. . .” (cue the deepest, rolling-est growl you’ve ever heard from a four-year-old) “. . . ROCK OUT!”

Once upon a time, my kid would have to tell me to laugh. After saying something a little off, something he thought was funny, he would point to me and demand, “Laugh, Mommy.” I would attempt a chuckle. Bug would make an unpleasant face. “No. I mean laugh a for real laugh.”

Faking laughter is harder than you might think. Stopping a real laugh in progress? Impossible.

Against all odds, we make it home intact. We collapse in bed and sleep the sleep of lumberjacks. Who knew all it would take is a rodent and a song? Those Grumpies don't stand a chance.