Family Friendly Drive Bys

My husband told me to read the “Baldo” comic strip yesterday when I got home. I don’t generally read “Baldo” since I do not have a Hispanic/Latino teenage boy in my home, nor a crazy old aunt who cures everyone’s illness with organ meat soup. We do not speak Spanish at home, or anywhere for that matter, and no one I know is into low riders. But what the hell, I read it. So imagine my surprise when I saw my own children in that comic strip. Here it is for reference:

My two daughters are the queen and princess of Punch Buggy, as we call it in our car. They start the minute we back out of the driveway, scanning the neighbor’s driveways, screaming Punch Buggy and slugging one another. It doesn’t matter if it is the same neighbor’s bug parked in the same spot that we pass at least once a day. My girls still scream Punch Buggy! and then cuff each other. They occasionally try to amend or create new rules. They prefer to not add the common place “Don’t punch back”, as I have explained to them that being the first to punch is the goal, and punching back tarnishes the spirit of the game. Momma didn’t raise no poor punch buggy sports. They also occasionally compromise on the broken down beetles from the 1960’s, swearing to not punch each other since the car cannot be moved from its weedy patch of yard. But usually my youngest daughter forgets and punches her sister anyway. It does seem that every time we get in the car there is a new list of riders, exceptions, and codicils to consider and then conveniently forget as soon as the first beetle drives by.

My 6 year old is not quite adept at identifying Volkswagens, so she occasionally will punch for the wrong type of car, which has led to a whole new list of backseat shenanigans. She created PT Poke, which in my mind happens all too often, as there are many more PT Cruisers on the road than Volkswagen Bugs. Why exactly is Chevrolet failing? They seem to sell plenty of those. Anyway, PT Punch is obviously the same as Punch Buggy, only it offers a more frequent reason to hit. Then my oldest daughter came up with Mack Attack, which does not involve a double cheeseburger with tiny minced onions or crappy fake Thousand Island dressing. Rather, when one spots a Mack truck, one is to smack the crap out of their backseat companion. They also scream out Jeep Beep, although I am not sure what kind of bodily harm is caused, although it might be a nose tweak. My favorite is the Mini Chinny, which involves slapping your opponent on the chin whenever a Mini Cooper is spotted first. They are constantly trying to think of new and unique ways to justify beating up each other. One day, we passed a cherry picker, which led to the rarely used Cherry Picker Eye Gouge. Okay, I made that one up. And no one is allowed to do it.

Punch Buggy is more than just a diversion for the daily commute to school. It is a borderline obsession. Deep conversations about big stuff like suicide and how to get in juvenile detention centers are often preempted by vehicle sightings and subsequent screams and smacks. Even worse is when we don’t sight anything. My 9 year old becomes obsessed, practically counting cars until a Mini or Volkswagen appears. I remember seeing Tetris shapes in my sleep, and I bet she is doing the same thing, seeing those cute little rounded cars everywhere she looks. I find myself constantly scanning when I am alone in the car, and I have been known to interrupt another unsafe car pastime, talking on my cell phone, to shout “Punch buggy!” in a friend’s ear.
I don’t know when it will end, or if they will outgrow it. I imagine it will go the way of general interaction. At some point, they will each have their ears stuffed with iPod buds, their fingers busily texting their friends, and will no longer remember that we all are in the car together. Until then, I have to consider “Punch Buggy” as a substitute for quality time. It’s not like my kids are really hitting each other if it’s part of a game.