Worry sport

Some families sing or play license plate bingo on long drives, but my family plays a different game. Mom thinks of something that could go wrong, and I have to think of a reason why it’s going to be okay. Mom’s a really tough competitor because she practices her worrying constantly. If she doesn’t have anything obvious to worry about, she invents an imaginary worry to practice on. 

The Wagon swerved the wrong way and pulled into a gas station instead. 

In the voice she uses when she’s definitely not making an excuse, Mom said, “We should stock up, just in case.”

“If they have hot dogs, you should buy them all. Just in case,” I called after her. 

She came out a century or two later, grinning and holding a heavy-looking box like a prize. She hoisted her trophy into the bed, where it crashed heavily into my sunspot. 

“Whatcha got there?” I sniffed.

Mom puffed out her chest like she’d outrun a jackalope for the last box. “It’s a 24-pack of fancy juice-water.” She ripped open the side of the box and pulled out a can. “They’ll make a nice treat after a hot, thirsty hike.” 

“But what about regular water?” I asked. Usually the packet of bottles took up most of my sleeping space, but I’d had plenty of room to stretch out the night before. 

Mom fanned my worry out of her ear. “I’m sure we can make it 1 more day on what we have in the van.” She opened the juice-water and took a self-satisfied swig.

I looked at the squashed plastic skin that the bottles came from. I would have guessed that there definitely wasn’t enough left, so I was glad that Mom knew what she was talking about.

Mom started the Wagon and picked up the worry game where we’d left off. “But what if we hit a sharp rock and get a flat tire or something?” 

“Turn right,” the Witch commanded. This time, the Wagon did as it was told.

Despite Mom’s worrying, the road was tame at first and the wheels on the Wagon went round and round without any of Mom’s worries coming true. It wasn’t until the second hour that we crossed the wrong cow catcher and a herd of highway bandits ambushed us. Without saying a word, they blocked the road with their beefy bulk, threatening us with stares as sharp as knives. 

The Wagon halted and I ran to every window, trying to bark at all the cows at once. They had us surrounded. The Wagon honked its horn and the chief bull lifted his head to show that he had horns too. 

“Quiet, Oscar! Don’t upset them,” Mom hissed.

I ignored her. “What’s the matter with you?” I barked. “Shoo! Shoo! Get outta here! Coming through!” 

The cows stood their ground, as if they couldn’t hear me at all.

After a long standoff, the Wagon took a tiny, submissive step forward. The bully chewed his cud menacingly and gave the Wagon a hard look to show who was in control. After several chews, he took an unhurried step to the side. As the Wagon crept past, Mom tried not to make eye contact with the bull as his breath puffed a small cloud onto the window beside her. 

“What if one of us gets hurt and we can’t get back to the road?” she asked with eyes stuck straight ahead.

“We could get hurt on any of our adventures. That’s why we’re careful,” I told her before going back to cow-barking.

“What if we get lost and can’t find the road?” 

“We get lost on every adventure. You and the Witch always find a way out.”

When even Mom was running out of new things to worry about, the road under the Wagon turned into machine guns and the rocks into landmines. Ratta-tatta-tat, boom! the floor thundered. Each time the road kicked the Wagon’s belly, Mom groaned like she was the one kicked. 

“The road sure is getting rocky,” she said. “I hope we don’t have car trouble all the way out here.” 

“You already used that one.” I played along anyway. “Someone will help us. There are lots of people out here. Why, I think I’ve seen three other cars today!”

“Yeah, but they were going in the other direction.” 

“They were coming from somewhere,” I said. “Probably the same place where we’re going. Maybe we’ll even make a Friend.”

Much later, the road became so steep and rocky that the Wagon whined its suspension and stomped its tires against the potholes, begging to turn around. 

“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” Mom said, hanging onto the driving wheel like it was her life preserver in a rough sea.

“Don’t be such a Chicken Little. I’m sure it’ll get better up ahead. Things are always at their worst before they get better.”

“I’m quite sure it won’t get any better from here,” Mom said, like everything getting worse was already part of the plan. “But there are only 5 miles ahead and 55 miles behind us. My nerves are too fried to drive back over all that after what we’ve been through. We might as well keep pushing.”

“See?” I said. “You’re almost there. Almost there is when everything gets better.”

A rock kicked us hard and the Wagon let out a metallic groan.

“What if we have car trouble, and we get lost, and hurt, and we run out of food and water, and my phone dies?” Mom asked.

“That’s cheating.” 

“No it’s not. Haven’t you ever noticed that bad things pile up? Once one thing goes wrong, everything goes to hell.” 

“Nothing in real life is ever as scary as the things you make up to worry about,” I reminded her. “Most of your worries don’t even happen.” 

“It’s not nice to belittle someone’s worries just because they’re not real.” Mom lifted her chin and half-closed her eyes snobbily. “Maybe it’s my worrying that prevents bad things from happening. Did you ever think of that?”

“My turn! I have a bad thing,” I said. “You could stop worrying, and then we’d really be in trouble!” Mom had no comeback for that one.

My bones had shaken loose and shuffled into the wrong body parts by the time the Witch started counting down our last mile. My tail perked up between where my ears used to be and I wagged my knees when the Wagon stopped. Mom’s nose reached for the front window as she X-rayed a puddle blocking the Wagon’s path. 

“Nah, I’m not risking it,” she decided, settling back in the driving chair. 

“Oh fun! Driving back over all of that in the dark is gonna give you all kinds of new things to worry about.” 

“Nah, we’re less than ½ a mile from the trailhead. We can walk from here. I guess this is home sweet home.” 

The Wagon pulled off the road and Mom pulled the that’ll do lever behind the driving wheel to hobble it. The Wagon sighed and settled with an exhausted tick-plunk as we each searched our new home for a potty that suited each of our styles. 

By the time darkness fell, Mom’s jitters had settled and there was room in her thought bubble for boredom. As we ate our dinners, she searched the Witch for something that she could doom scroll without the internet. 

“How about we look at the reviews on AllTrails for inspiration?” the Witch suggested.

“No fair!” I said. “You can’t copy other people’s problems. That’s against the rules.” 

Mom caught the Witch’s pass and ran with it anyway. “The trail is the river. I repeat, you will be hiking IN THE RIVER,” she read. “What do you suppose that means?” 

“Don’t let her get to you, Mom. She’s probably up to her old tricks. Maybe it was flooded that day. What time of year are rivers the biggest?” 

“Maybe in winter, because of the rainy season? Or it could be spring, when the snow melts.” 

I could never figure out how seasons work in places that have four of them. At the Stuck House we only have three seasons that we call by different names: morning, afternoon, and night. “What season is it now?” I asked.

Mom did some quick calculations. “It’s mid-March so that’s… winter. Or spring? Right between winter and spring.” 

“Oh good! You’re right either way!” 

“Yeah, but what do you think they meant by hiking in the river?” Mom pressed. 

“That’s called swimming,” I yawned. “You can’t trust a review from someone who doesn’t know the difference between hiking and swimming.” 

“But what if the water is high and we aren’t prepared. We could drown.”

“I know how to swim,” I said. “I just don’t like to. Do you know how to swim?” 

“Of course I know how to swim.” 

“And who’s gonna push us into the water if we don’t feel like swimming?” 

“No one’s going to push us,” Mom said. “But water can be unpredictable in the desert.”

“You think the river is gonna jump offsides and tackle us?” 

“Well, no. Not like a flash flood. But what if there’s water blocking the trail? That could happen.” 

“So?”

“So… we’d have to cross.” She turned her nose up a few degrees. “You wouldn’t know this because you never played Oregon Trail, but bad things always happen at river crossings.”

“Like wet socks?” 

“Among other things…” she said mominously. “You know that feeling when you’re swimming in heavy clothes?”

“I’m a runner not a swimmer, Mom. And I don’t wear clothes.”

“Oh, right. Well, getting into trouble isn’t the scary part. At first, the extra resistance doesn’t seem like a big deal. You get so wrapped up in a fight that you forget to check if something is worth fighting for, so you keep swimming until you’re in too deep. By the time you realize that you’re bogged down, it may be too late.”

“Ah yes,” I yawned again, in case she hadn’t noticed the first time. “It’s important to stay out of bogs.”

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