My daughter, Storm, has an incredible memory. She can remember everything I ever did that was wrong.
Recently she reminded me of an incident that happened when she was a teenager. It was late at night and I remembered I needed some cash for something I had to do the next morning. I didn't want to drive to the bank alone to use the ATM machine so asked my daughter to go with me.
She was ready for bed, wearing pajamas with cows jumping over the moon printed on them and house slippers, and she had curlers in her hair. She didn't want to leave the house.
"Please!" I begged. "It will only take 15 minutes, I promise."
"What if someone sees me?" she asked because when you are a teenager nothing is worse than your friends seeing you in pajamas with rollers in your hair.
"I promise no one will see you. It's dark outside, the bank is only a few minutes away. We'll just fly to the bank and fly home," I said.
She wasn't happy but she gave in. We drove to the bank and while I was using the ATM machine, a man was crossing the street next to the bank and got hit by a car. Within seconds a half dozen cars stopped to check on him, several police cars arrived, as well as an ambulance, a fire truck and a Channel 4 TV news truck, which arrived with cameras. All this happened between the time I used the ATM machine and walked back to my car.
I'd never seen anything like it. The man had been hit by the car only minutes earlier.
Suddenly a helicopter hovered overhead with lights shining on all of us. My daughter was screaming at me, "Get out of here before the TV news people see us!"
I wanted to leave, but the police had already put up the yellow tape to block traffic. My daughter crawled onto the floor of the car.
The man was not seriously injured, but they took him away in the ambulance. The fire truck left, and finally the police left. Apparently there had been a house fire a block away and all the emergency vehicles, police and TV news had been covering the fire when they heard a man had been run over a block away, and they all rushed to the scene.
My daughter was furious and laid in the floor of the car until we got home. Our car was shown on the news the next morning, but fortunately we were just in the background.
My daughter forgave me for almost ruining her whole life but after that close call, when I'd ask her to go someplace with me she'd say, "Do you promise nothing weird will happen?"
So I'd promise nothing weird would happen and she'd give in.
I dragged her to what I thought was going to be a lecture about astronomy but it turned out to be a convention of people who believed they'd been abducted by UFOs and had been held prisoner on the moon. When the speaker asked for everyone who had been taken aboard a UFO to stand, everyone stood except my daughter and me. We crouched down and sneaked out of the meeting.
And there was the time I took her to a rodeo, and I'd paid extra for seats right up front. A Brahman bull bucked off his rider and then jumped the fence and came running right up aisle toward us. I grabbed her by her arms and threw her over two rows of seats. Then I jumped after her to escape the bull.
And there was the time we were going to a wedding but ended up at the wrong church and sat through a funeral for someone we didn't know.
I'm sure we had some more adventures, but I've forgotten them. I hope she's forgotten them too.
I try to be careful when I make a promise because things don't always go the way I planned.
Crying Wind is the author of Crying Wind and My Searching Heart, When the Stars Danced, and Thunder in Our Hearts, Lightning in Our Veins.
