road trip
My mother loved to hear us girls sing together. We did not always oblige, but when we did, she would beam with pride – well – most of the time.
For some reason, she didn’t like allof our vocal selections, especially when we were on a road trip. We tuned up our voices and started the first verse in unison, “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer. Take one down, pass it around, ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall.”
After the first verse, the game was on! No two verses were alike, but Mama was not impressed with our skills of creating ninety-nine variations. We could switch parts mid-stream without a glitch. While one took the lead, “Ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall…”, the other added background vocals in harmony, “Ninety-eight bottles, ninety-eight bottles, ninety-eight bottles…” And so on and so forth!
By the time we got to “Eighty-nine bottles of beer on the wall,” Mama was already tired of our performance. She voiced her objection, “Buck, will you make the girls quit singing that song?” I thought she liked to hear us sing!
After prompting Daddy several times to do something, he finally said, “You’re driving your mother crazy!”
Well, you can’t fault us for not trying.