That DUI Thing
Abigail Thomas
Word Count 338
Rain today. They had to install that DUI thing in my car because my daughter doesn’t have her car anymore. She has the DUI. It’s an infuriating invention called Intoxalock and it stays in for six months. You have to blow into its mouthpiece to start the engine, and you have to be sober: three counts breathing out, two counts breathing in, three counts breathing out, then you wait for the verdict to appear in a little box. I’m an eighty-year-old woman who has smoked most of her life. TOO SOFT the goddamn thing reads time after time. My daughter (who can start the car on first blow) is allowed to drive one day a week. My huffing and puffing works maybe once in ten tries. I am so furious that I have to do this before I can drive my own fucking car that I could spit. Then it occurs to me you can describe the situation thusly: my car won’t start without a blowjob. This is at least funny. I tell my friend Rick and Rick tells me that he read in The Atlantic that blow job (which of course does not involve actual blowing) comes from “below job,” which is self-explanatory, and I tell him that when I first heard the expression “giving head” I thought it referred to the ejaculate as equivalent to the head on a beer. I’m not going to paint the picture, I’m sure you get it. I like using the word “ejaculate” instead of “cum,” because it has a literary ring. I want to come off as an intellectual so somebody will nominate me for a Pushcart. I’m very pleased with “thusly.” But they better hurry up, because Intoxalock will tell you to blow while you are driving, just to make sure you aren't sneaking a drink in the car, and if you’re me, and you can't make that happen, it will start your horn to blowing and your lights to flashing. Good God Almighty. A collision in the making.
Abigail has four children, twelve grandchildren, one great grandchild, two dogs, and a high school education. Her books include Safekeeping; A Three Dog Life; and What Comes Next and How to Like It. She lives in Woodstock, NY