Sensory Overload

I'm in the driver's seat of Mumsy Hyphenatie's stealthy, yet understated white passenger car. Brother is in the front seat, Mumsy is behind me, and Step Dad is next to her, gently caressing her hand.

"Blah, we just checked three places, and none of them are open. Are you going to eat with us," I ask S over the phone as our gas conscious 4-cylinder auto weaves in and out of traffic. My spicy frustration thickly glazes the air - we can't find a reputable Mexican restaurant to enjoy this late at night.

"Oh, well I don't care where we eat. Mumsy says that she wants pizza now," Brother tries to allay my seething emotions. I shoot him a searing look of acid - I simmer a little when people change their minds in the middle of a spectacle.

As I listen to S ask his co-workers where tasty places are, Mumsy H bubbles up from the back seat, "Oh, let's just go eat at the casino. They're always open 24 hours, and you can have all you can eat, and we can play and everything!" The whites of my eyes tidal from left to right through my sockets, as I roll my head toward my right shoulder and matter-of-factly say, "We're not going to eat at a casino, mom. I'll find a place, just hold your horses, ok?"

4-1-1 becomes a knight in shimmering silver, and I start aggressively driving through construction zones and freeway traffic to a restaurant open for 30 more minutes. For some reason that I haven't determined yet, my mom was yelping about my skill of deftly dodging the barricades and cars around us. Must be a parental quality that I will never know.

We meet S, and place our order. Mumsy Hyphenatie leans in toward us, her eyes ablaze in excitement. "So, I was at Cliff Castle the other day a few weeks ago, and I was playing my favorite game, Top Gun! And this native lady sits down at the penny slot next to me to get into her fighter jet." Mumsy lifts up her hand to salute to no one in particular, and takes a sip of her unsweetened iced tea, then continues, "Anyway, this lady put in $5 and spins a few times, then gets the bonus!" Mumsy jumps up slightly, reveling in the firecracker passion of her story retelling. We all look at her and smile.

"Yes," she continues, "and the old grandma didn't know what was going on! So, I lean over and tell her to push the buttons, 'Fly left! Fly left! Fly left!' I screamed, and the woman got a bonus, then I told her, 'Go up, Go up, go up!', and she hits the up button." Another sip of iced tea. "And this grandma starts breathing really fast and then she has to shoot down the other fighter planes on the screen, so I tell her to 'hit it, hit it, hit it!' and she does, but she misses the second one, and then her tun is over."

"Oh really? What happened next," I ask, noting that Brother throws a small tantrum by leaning back dismissively in his chair.

"Well, the lady made about $80 off of her $5, on a penny machine."

"Wow, that's really good, especially on a penny machine."

"Yeah, it is. But anyway, the old grandma cashes out, and says to me, 'oh, I can't play this anymore. I'm afraid of heights, I better go.'"

The table laughs, and I say, "Um... she didn't leave anywhere, besides her winning machine."

Mumsy impishly looks at me, "I know. Her whole trip on the computer screen was all on the ground in the seat next to me. Crazy lady."