Sunday, July 24, 2011

Sunday Driver

Handsome has been seeing commercials for a local place that dies Go-Kart rentals and Mini Golf. Today I decided to take him there as a bit of a surprise. He was happy to go, and was jumping up and down at the idea of driving the Go-Kart.
"I'm gonna beat you," he kept telling me, a huge smile on his face.
Now, for those of you who have never been out to a Go-Kart track, as I had not been before today, I'll tell you that there is no 'starting line'. You roll out of the shed and go, they start you one at a time. Since I was last in line, I entered the track being lapped by the first one or two drivers. Handsome, who had started right in front of me, was a half a lap ahead of me when I started.
I never got any closer.
I wound up trapped behind a girl in a yellow car. There were "NO bumping" signs all over the track, including the rear of all the cars, so I had the feeling that they were taking that rule pretty seriously. I was trying to avoid bumping this girl. She, on the other hand, seemed determined to hit everything! She hit me, the sidewalls, the kid in front of her, just everything. I'm almost positive that a couple of times if I could have avoided being hit by her she would have just spun out. I was having a hard time avoiding her, and when she wiped out the kid in front of her I almost ran right into the poor boy, but I managed to avoid him. Eventually she wiped out the next kid in front of her and they both went spinning out of control. I avoided the both of them and figured I had gained a couple of places, at least, between me and Handsome.
Then the person in front of me spun me out as I was passing him. He didn't 'bump' me, he drove into me continuously, grinding me into the guard rail until I went into a spin. He was about six years old, and the only reason he was even allowed to be in the car at all was that he was in the two-seater with his dad, but he took me out nicely.
When the other two spin outs happened, they threw some switch in the shed and sent out some signal to the little electric cars we were driving, turning on a speed governor and we all slowed to a safe crawl until one of the attendants could make his way out onto the track and push the car back into position.
Not so when I spun out. When I came to rest with my nose to the guard rail, unable to back up as the cars have no 'reverse', the other cars were left at full power. Handsome told me later that he was saddened when he saw that I was spun out, and worried that I was okay.
While I was stuck, unable to move, however, he flew past me in his full-powered car with a huge grin and a "Hi, Dad!".
Twice. The attendant was not into moving fast.
Since then, my 'saddened' and 'worried' son has told everyone we know, and quite a few that we don't, the story of how he lapped me twice his first time ever driving a Go-Kart. His grin gets bigger every time he tells it.
I really don't know where he gets his competitive streak from.

... but I made sure to beat him in the mini-golf. Not by a huge amount, but by enough that he knew who won.

Funny, how he leaves that part out of the story when he tells it.

Talk to you later!

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