Past Speeding

I'm quite sure this flashed past.

And I do mean flashed.

We teenagers in Milk River lived an hour from the bright lights of Lethbridge.

Let me start again. 

Everybody in Milk River lived an hour from Lethbridge.

The teenagers . . . a little less.

Maybe I should explain . . .

It was Friday night.

The only theatre in Milk River was showing something that none of my group was interested in seeing.

It happened occasionally. 

Now that we were old enough to legally drive, we were becoming less and less enamoured with what our small town offered and more and more interested in what we could find in the big city.

Twice as many choices for movie-watching, for example.

The only problem on this particular evening was our timing.

We had decided, en masse, that the movie we were all assembled to see was far less interesting than one of the choices currently running in Lethbridge.

And we had decided this while we were standing on the sidewalk, waiting to get in.

Half an hour before either movie was set to start.

Could we make it?

Our driver of the evening gave a nonchalant shrug of shoulder and a flippant toss of head. “Of course!”

That was all we needed.

We, ten of us, piled – and I do mean piled – into his car. Four in front. Six in back.

Seatbelts hadn’t been invented yet.

And we were off.

We cleared the town limits, then our driver ‘buried the needle’.

And that’s when the reality of the situation hit me.

What we were doing went beyond speeding.

I’m quite sure we were flying.

At one point, I think we passed Mercury.

I should probably point out, here, that I don’t like travelling at high speeds. In fact, horse and cart is my usual form of transportation. And let’s face it, Old Bessy really wouldn’t make much of a showing on the Indianapolis circuit.

Back to my story . . .

I was so terrified that I spent the entire trip flat on my stomach on the back floor under everyone’s feet. It was the safest place I could think of.

Once I poked my head above the seat and stared in awe at the needle. 

Which was flat against the little pike at the bottom of the speedometer.

How do you say ‘yikes’?

Oh, right. 

Yikes.

We made it safely.

In twenty-four minutes.

The only casualty was my equilibrium.

I don’t even remember what the movie was.

Can anyone say ‘irony’? We took our lives in our hands for a movie that none of us can even remember. The very essence of being a teenager.

But if any of my kids try this . . .