Two Bottles

The car was a boat, but this wasn't a problem because gas was only 35 cents a gallon. My sister got to sit in the front seat while a large paper sack of groceries and two glass one-quart bottles of soda occupied the back seat with me. The seats were dark gray vinyl, but worn in the spots that people planted their posteriors. I was in the middle of one of these whitish areas, sans seatbelt, as was the style in those days.

I couldn't see over the seats and had little interest in the contents of the grocery bag. My mother stopped at a stoplight, and I looked over at the two bottles. One of them was green with a white shield design on the label. The other was clear with a dark liquid. I could read then, but not particularly well. I knew one bottle was ginger ale, and the other was cola.

As I sat there waiting for the light to change and signal the changing of scenery, I felt bored and decided to see what would happen if I pushed the two bottles together. At nearly the moment that the light changed, I pushed one into the other. There was a noise as the glass shattered and the liquid spilled all over the seats. My finger started to bleed and I began to cry.

I cried out of fear rather than out of pain. My mother verbally lashed out at me severely if I made even the smallest mistake, and I'd just made a very big one. Instead of being angry with me, my mother pulled over and was filled with concern for my copiously bleeding finger. She thought the bottles had broken because of the car's movement. She didn't know that it was my fault, and I never told her.