This morning in the car on the way to school, after I assured a very nervous Isabella that hot dogs do not, in fact, come from actual dogs* and assuring her that we would find her a boyfriend named Zachary because that is her “most specialist name in the whole wide world,” a Cranberries song came on the radio. Linger. And then, all of a sudden, it’s Chicago, circa 1995 and  I am driving eight people in a Jeep that only fits five home (and I am actually pretty sure at least one of those eight people  is now a rabbi) from the Cranberries concert. It was pouring and we were eating copious amounts of these

and fighting over radio stations. I was wearing Doc Martens and a giant denim shirt. I looked a little bit this.

and was very cool. And wrote things like this in my yearbook….

(CHANDLER BING IS MY HERO? WTF?)

And then, shabooyah, car accident the first. I panicked and hit the gas instead of the brake. Stupid pedals. Why do they have to be so bloody complicated? And you know what else is complicated? Having to explain to my mother that, alas, I had actually been lying when I told her “NO! Of course you don’t have to worry! Naomi’s mom is going to drive us to the concert AND she’s even going to pick us up! You can totally trust me!” Ahem. Teenagers.

Every time I hear the Cranberries, I remember that feeling. Of having to call my mother in Milwaukee. And explain to her that, well, that was not the first – nor the last – time that I lied to her. It was just the first time that I had gotten caught.

And every time I see a boat-esque blue Chevy Lumina, shabooyah, I am taken back to car accident the second, circa 2004. It was pouring and I was eating candy and I panicked and hit the gas instead of the brake on Bathurst Street in rush hour traffic. Stupid pedals. I remember that feeling. Of having to call my father-in-law and explain to him that I had busted up his car.

I never want to have to make phone calls like that again. I never want to feel like that again. This is why I no longer eat candy while driving. More dangerous than cell phones, I swear. And it’s also the reason that sometimes I drive like a grandmother. Don’t judge. Well, you can judge the giant denim shirt; just not the driving.

*Now that I think about it, it may have been a mistake to tell her that hot dogs actually come from cows. I smell some vegetarianism in her future.