For decades, Mom and her best friend, Peggy, made a daily Pepsi run. Peggy would drive one day, Mom would drive the next. They’d pull up to the drive-up window at any one of a number of Delta’s finest establishments. It was the Cardwell gas station for the last few years of their Pepsi-running. There was always a brief tiff over whose turn it was to pay. Drink in hand, they would cruise the roads of Millard County. Even the Stake President once acknowledged their presence in a Relief Society meeting by referring to them as the ladies who drink and drive. His wife made him apologize to them later, but they thought it was funny. And all the church ladies of the Delta West Stake understood and thought it was funny too.
There came a time when Mom could no longer drive, so I drove them when it was her turn. When Mom got rid of her car, I began to drive them in Peggy’s car when it was Mom’s turn. Eventually, I became the official chauffeur of their daily forays to and fro across the county, always in Peggy’s car. If you ever experienced the comedy routine that was Mom’s and Peggy’s friendship, I don’t have to explain how exhausting and enlightening and uplifting it could be to be around them. If you never had the chance to see them be friends live and in-person, all I can say is that you missed something wonderful. Now Mom lives in a care center and Peggy is gone.
It was because of Mom and Peggy that one day I truly regretted not having bigly bucks in my bank account to waste on one humongous good laugh. It’s the only time in my life I have been ticked off that I wasn’t awash in wealth. We had just picked up our daily drinks and we were driving out of Delta on Lone Tree Road, when I got this vision. I wanted to buy a motorcycle, with two side-cars attached for Mom and Peggy. I wanted to jump on the bike and drive Mom and Peggy—and their drinks—up over the overpass, and up and down Main Street, then all across every paved and dirt road in the county. And the old broads would have gone along with it—once, just to make everyone who saw them laugh.
Well, of course, I told Mom and Peggy my plan-which-wouldn’t-happen. We all got a kick out of envisioning it. I said, “You know you would do it.” The minute I said that, they both replied in unison as if they’d practiced the line for years, “Yes, but not on hair day.”
I couldn’t find a side-car for my bicycle, but I did manage to find a bike trailer for Skitter to accompany me on my bike outings. I’m letting the skittish mutt get used to her trailer for a few days before we head out on an actual trek. Here, she wears her Tie o’ the Day, looking forward to our meandering daily journeys. We wish Mom and Peggy could come with us.