nowinsituation

A fun family outing - to the season opening football game. There are enough tickets that I can go to the game, as can my daughter (13) and my son (19). My Dad makes sure the cooler has goodies for everyone; but we can't find our tailgating friends before the game. Afterwards my daughter & I are last to arrive at the car. My sister's BF is there, so drunk he is zombie-like; my sister has gone to the bathroom and is franticially phoning us as she has lost her way back to the car. I see her in the distance and go to get her; she is so upset she begins to cry. We wait for traffic to clear and my Dad drives us back across town. He struggles badly with the unfamiliar streets and the heavy traffic. He is drunk, too; I didn't notice it. We make it back to our car, and head for home. My daughter confesses to me - "I am scared when I am around people who have had too much to drink. I wish you or (son) would have driven." I feel her pain, I apologize to her for not being a better example; for getting into the car and allowing her to ride with a drunk driver. I silently chastise myself for exposing her to the idea that this is how you have fun, this is how you celebrate victory or drown defeat whatever the case may be. The world looks very different to me if I try to see it through her eyes.

Jazzman

When I was in second grade my parents bought a boat and joined a yacht club in Maryland and that's where spent every weekend during my youth. At first it started out being fun but after a few years it turned into a place for all the adults to get sh!t faced and cheat on their spouses while all the kids ran around unsupervised.

Anyway, one weekend when I was about 14 or so I rode back with my dad and he had been drinking. It was a one hour drive and 15 minutes into it he was falling asleep at the wheel. I was too young to drive and was too scared to say pull over and let me out. That was the scariest 45 minutes in my entire life hoping I would get home alive. I have a deep seeded lack of sympathy for drunk drivers, especially drunk adults that are supposed to be taking care of their kids.

So these football tickets you have access to... are they season tickets to the Redskins? If so... will you marry me?

CatsPajamas

Jazz,

I just spit water on my keyboard from laughing.

BBD

Jazz~~your quite the character. I grew up like that also. A big boat~~yacht club and all~~but I stayed away from the boat cause I couldn't stand all the drinking my parents did and the nonsense that went along with it. I only went when my dad was taking the family out for an adventure on the lake. That was fun!! We live by setting examples (or trying to))for our kids and then some end up on drugs anyway!! So sad!! Smiles, Bonnie

nowinsituation

Sorry Jazz -- about 1200 miles too far away to be Redskins tickets! Thanks for the proposal though, you made my day!