Go Vucka, Go! Covering the F-Bomb

In my defense, it had been a very long day.

I woke up at five o’clock that morning, drove an hour to my client site, and taught for eight hours before heading back to daycare to pick up my kids. After daycare, I decided to take the kids - then aged four, two, and six months - to the carwash, which they love. This was my first mistake.

I bought my ticket and got into the carwash line. The line was long, and there was some sort of mechanical problem that was making the wait longer than usual. If I hadn’t already promised the kids, I would have left immediately, but we stuck it out for twenty minutes. The kids were remarkably patient, but twenty minutes was too long to wait with no end in sight, so we bailed.

I left the gas station and made my way toward the exit of the strip mall parking lot. This is where my tale takes a dark turn.

Six o’clock traffic at this particular strip mall (on Waxpool Road, near the ice rink) is a mess. There are cars coming from five directions to converge on the single egress traffic light. Cars were crawling along and jockeying for position. Drivers raced to the stop signs and quickly gauged whether they were next in line to get into the stoplight queue. A pathetic handful of cars escaped at each green light.

Let me mention one other point in my defense: I was driving my husband’s Jeep, which I rarely do. We had just configured the back seat to allow for all three kids’ car seats, so I wasn’t used to driving with the kids in that car. I was single-mindedly focused on getting out of there since the kids cranky about not getting the carwash, plus they were bored and getting hungry. And did I mention that it had been a long day?

Whatever the reason, the events about to occur show that I momentarily forgot that the kids were, in fact, in the car.

Anyway, at last it was my turn to proceed from the final stop sign to the stoplight, and the light was green. Life was good. Confident that I had plenty of time to make my turn, I magnanimously waved to the woman on my left, allowing her to go ahead of me so both of us could make the light.

I waited, but she didn’t move.

I waved again.She still didn’t move. The green light was getting old.

“Go!” I yelled at my closed window.

She hesitated.

“GO!!!”

She tentatively toed her gas pedal. The light turned yellow.

F@$%ING GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I bellowed.

The lady’s car sauntered into the turn lane ahead of me as the light turned red. Simultaneously furious, frustrated, and mortified, I followed behind her, idling into the lane.

My passengers and I were utterly silent.

I could not believe that I had yelled that particular phrase. I frantically tried to think about words that I might pass off as a “near miss” for the words that I had just taught my kids; I needed something akin to a quickly inserted “shoot” to camouflage the “s” word.

Nothing. Nothing. Think, dammit, think!!

Then, after an excruciating moment, I had it.

“Hey kids!” I said cheerily. “Guess what!? The lady in that car’s name is Vucka. Ms. Vucka. I wanted her to hurry so I told her to go. I said, ‘Go, Vucka! Go!’”

“Oh!” they said, as if that made perfect sense. Everyone exhaled; the tension quickly left the car.

We sat there a few seconds, looking at Ms. Vucka in her car ahead of us, waiting for the light to change.
Then, my beautiful children, ages two and four, both started to chant sweetly, but with fervor, “Go Vucka, go!” until Ms. Vucka drove out of sight.

I make mistakes with my kids regularly. Luckily, some quick thinking gave me a Mulligan on this one; I’m not proud of it, but it turned out ok. Ms. Vucka was never heard from again…so far.