Driving Distractions

One of these days, the police are going to pull me over for driving erratically during peak hour traffic. They will suspect that I am driving while intoxicated, but he will be wrong. In fact, I will be driving being a HOT tea-pot.

I am often a HOT teapot while driving. This is because when my 24-month-old daughter is in the car, she demands to hear her favourite CD, ''Traditional Children's Songs From Hell.'' At least that's what I know it as. It's one of those CDs with those old songs that we are required by the Education Expert (Play school teacher)  to expose our children to, because they enhance the brain development of the child. 

Consider ''Old McDonald.'' It starts out fine: ''Old McDonald had a farm.'' But then it goes to ''E-I-E-I-O,'' as though the lyricist had a bunch of extra vowels he needed to use before the typewriter stops functioning with the vowels. Let me say, how hard it is for some person (not you) to come up with a rhyming word for farm.

Here are my alternatives:

1.     And Theresa bit of his left arm

2.     He had 6 sheep to keep him warm

3.     Since he had no money, there was NO harm

But ''Old McDonald'' is every Child’s ''Messiah'' compared with 'Here we go round the Mulberry bush,' a song apparently written by somebody with a severe case of attention deficit disorder, as we see by the highly informative first verse: ''Here we go round the Mulberry bush!

The Mulberry Bush

The Mulberry Bush

The Mulberry Bush

The Mulberry Bush

On a Cold and Frosty Morning.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: 1. Is it a Mulberry Bush? 2. Where is it? I am forced to listen to these brain-enhancing songs constantly when I drive with her. I'm so used to hearing them that sometimes I'll be halfway to my office, the phrase gets stuck in your mind: ``The wheels on the bus go round and round! Round and round! Round and round!'' when suddenly it dawns on me: She is not in the car. I can play my own music, with intelligent lyrics! (Note: Tamil Film Songs are not far away from the above)

The biggest problem with children's educational songs is that many of them call for actions on the part of the listeners. Most daughters, are very strict, expects everybody to perform these actions along with them. So if we're listening to ''Johny Johny Yes Papa'' and she notices that I'm using my arms for some frivolous activity such as steering or honking, she will repeat, ''Daddy do it! Daddy do it!'' until I let go of the wheel and wave my hand for "Eating Sugar NO papa". I have been so much trained now-a-days that I have started steering with my stomach.

But the worst song, from a driving standpoint, is ''Where Is Thumbkin?'' This is the one where you sing about, and display one at a time, the various fingers on your hand: Thumbkin, Ring Man, Pointer, etc. As you can imagine, this can create misunderstandings in traffic when your fellow female motorists see you holding up Thumkin.

It’s for this purpose that I want someone to BAN these songs for the next 20 years so that I can drive in peace. In case you want my support I will willingly do it – “This is the way to CLAP your HANDS, CLAP your HANDS, CLAP your HANDS”.