"oh boo" moment #1
The Great Porte Cochere Incident of 6/4/6
For those of you who do not know what a porte cochere is, you will find out by the end of this post. Please, if you do not know, don’t be tempted to look it up; conversely, if you do know, please don’t spoil it for others. The porte cochere is not only a structure designed to keep you dry and in the shade while entering your home - the French had something entirely different in mind when they came up with this little gem. I’ll let you in on what it is a little later.
First a side story.
Our son informed me on our way to the new residence with the wonderful porte cochere that it is really a shame when people feel they must put words with music and that the words just ruin the music. All this while I was rocking out on Christian salsa artists “Salvador”! Shamed by his statement, I turned it down and we played a game of “I’ll say the name of a musical instrument and you tell me what type of music it is most commonly played to.” Oh joy! After about five minutes of that, I’d had enough and let him know it!
Sooooo, he began talking about how great it is to now have a house with a marvelous porte cochere. After about five minutes of that, I’d had enough and started blasting the salsa again! Awhile later when we were almost home to the house with the blessed porte cochere something so defining came across my mind and so much so that I could not shake the feeling and I’ll explain later…
But before that, another side story.
I don’t know about the rest of the women who may come to visit here, but my husband WILL NOT allow me to drive him ANYWHERE! He complains about female drivers incessantly and so much so that sometimes it hurts my feelings, but instead of disagreeing vehemently, I allow him his rant. I remind him that in 35+ years of driving, I’ve scraped the side of a vehicle on a phone pole pulling out of a tight spot (the pole’s fault), was rear ended by a speeding teen while backing out of a driveway in a school zone (the teen’s fault), have hit one deer and one rabbit (definitely their faults).
Okay, back to the story of the wonderful porte cochere.
As we approached our new weekly residence, I waved my schweetie and daughter on as I was stopping at a convenience store for ice and soda. All the while I was hoping my husband would just back up to the almighty porte cochere and I in turn would back up to it and we could simultaneously unload our rigs without getting in each other’s way - and - on first appearance pulling into the drive it looked as though that’s just what he had done - I was wrong…
The look on Evan’s face was enough to tell me something didn’t go quite right as she ran up to my rig with a worried look, chattering something like, “Pop said the EFF word - TWICE!” There was glass everywhere and the refrigerator in the back of the spanking new company truck looked like a wrinkled soda can and I had five ice chests full of cold and frozen food to put into it! How could he do this to me?
This is where the now hated porte cochere comes into play. It seems my other half tried to pull ALL THE WAY into the dreaded porte cochere with the fridge loaded up against the rear window of his pick-up (that’s what you call them after their first accident). No, really, really. Well, nix that idea! I knew immediately to not say a word and just put the ice on the beer. After awhile the silence was deafening, and as Evan kept mumbling to me about the “EFF” word and how pop had said it - TWICE - I could honestly not help myself and started cracking jokes about the “incident”.
Actually, I was backing up to the columns around the now not-so-handsome porte cochere, scratching my back while LMAO! When he’d had enough and we were sitting down to a cold one, he gently said to me with that look only we women know, “Babe, could we please not talk about this anymore? You’re in the birdcat (I corrected him to catbird) seat on this and you smirking isn’t helping.” And, I relented ONLY after demanding he take back what he’d been saying about female drivers! It was his turn to relent.
I believe these “incidents” occur to show us mercy for others as in none of us is exempt from making stupid moves. Well, except for me of course and I pointed this out to him. Why does he always nod and smile a lot at me?
Now, to top this story off. Mind you, I was five miles away from him when the “incident occurred, but apparently it was my fault. Or so he says. It appears I made a comment to him before we left and he said he couldn’t get it out of his mind and was distracted upon impact. Yeah, it was my $166.00 mistake and quite possibly a new fridge before too long.
The once powerful porte cochere has now become a carport with a dent in it. Those pesky French…
originally published on june 6, 2006 at longrange. please forgive any grammatical and/or spelling errors.
an experiment: sydney brooke simpson
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