Tales from the Shotgun Wars

A few weeks ago, we started allowing the lass to ride shotgun in the car. I knew that the decision would result in clashes with the boy, but that’s the price parents pay. Or something.

In truth, I expected a lot more fireworks right out of the gate. Instead, there appears to have been a feeling out process where each has tried to figure out the other’s tactics for attaining the prized shotgun seat. For instance, at the pickup line after school, the lass figured out that timing and position was everything and she could gain the seat by making sure she was closer to the front of the car than her brother. The boy, realizing this tactical advantage, adopted the strategy for his own. The boy has figured out that his sister likes her morning cartoons a little too much and thus gains the advantage by being first to get out the door in the mornings. The lass has yet to adjust.

Still, there really hadn’t been much in the way of arguments about one or the other always sitting in the passenger seat. Until the last couple of days, when the lass has begun to let her frustration’s boil over. She groused for the ride home in the car yesterday because the boy had out-dueled her for both the ride to and the ride from school.

So this morning, when I announced it was time to go, the boy was off like a, er, shot for his coat and backpack. The lass accused him of rushing “just to get the front seat.” The boy responded by taunting her, of course. I was the last one out the door by several seconds and when I looked up, I witnessed a new tactic in the Shotgun Wars.

Since the boy had been the first out the door, he was already climbing into the passenger seat for our Highlander. The lass had decided to allow fate to decide who would get shotgun this morning- she went to our other car and was climbing into the passenger seat as I started down our walk. Thus, it was up to me to decide would win this morning’s battle. A risky strategy on her part; but a clever one if I do say. Realizing she had surely lost if she climbed into the back of the Highlander, where the boy already sat, she gambled by forcing me to pick a car.

My first thought was, “Damn, I wish we had a 3rd car.” In the end, fuel economy won out this morning, and so did the lass. Much to the boy’s consternation, I’m sure you’ll be surprised to learn. His turn to grouse in the back.

I expect the boy will be asking which car they’ll be riding in tomorrow morning.