I could charge admission to my car.

I've been spending a lot of time in the car lately. One of the downsides to being a parent is that you automatically become a chauffeur (and a maid, laundress, tutor and personal chef). It gets tiring, driving from here to there all the time. Lucky for me, I have entertaining children.

My kids love to listen to the radio in the car, mainly because we car dance. If you've never car danced, you should try it. It will most definitely entertain you, and will absolutely humiliate your teenagers. We were driving down a 6 lane highway the other day when "Mr. Roboto" came on the radio. My son started praying out loud that all the stoplights would be green. I guess God has a sense of humor, because we got stopped every quarter mile. I do a mean robot, and now the girls do, too. I would pretend to feel sorry for my son, but... well, I don't. He has done his share of embarrassing things, so he can suck it up and deal.

I like to sing in the car, too. I don't sing in the shower. I actually don't sing anywhere but the car. I wasn't blessed with a melodious voice, so it's best to confine my singing as much as possible. I get a little too much echo in the shower, and I don't even want to hear my warbling repeated back to me, so the shower is out. The car works for me. My favorite genre is 80's music, and I seriously know every song written in that decade. One of the local stations does a "Friday Night 80's" show, and we happened to be in the car for it on Friday (thus the Mr. Roboto dance party). A few minutes after I retired my robot, I heard a popular tune from my early teen years. I was belting it out at top volume, much to my son's chagrin. He did the mega-sigh, and I kept on singing.

"Tell it to my heart, tell me I'm the only one, is this really love or just a gaaaaame.."

"Hey, Mom? Who sings this song?"

"Taylor Dayne!"

"Ummm, can we keep it that way?"

"Fine, then. No more serenade for you. There are children in third world countries who never got a serenade in the car by their loving mother. How dare you complain. I'm ashamed of you."

"You're ashamed? Pffft."

That wasn't nice. At least I tone it down a little when his friends are with us. I try to sing songs from decades that they were alive in.

My most recent car entertainment has been courtesy of my daughters. I really don't know where they learned this, but they yell at other cars. I'm not an aggressive driver, and I keep my road rage in check by singing badly, so I'm certain that they did not learn it from me. I'll have to remember to thank their father.

So I'm driving down the highway (singing Life is a Highway - imagine that) and hit a little bit of congestion. I slow to a crawl, and turned the radio down a little. I know that I'm not the only person who adjusts the volume of the radio to match the speed I'm driving, so don't laugh at me. When I go slow, I have to turn it down. It just makes sense. Anyway, when I slowed down, I heard a bellow from the backseat. "Move out of the way, cars!"

Awww, cute.

"I said, move out of the way, FARTHEADS!"

What? Oh, no. I swear, I did not teach her that word, either. Abby chimed in with a, "Yeah, fawtheads!"

Super-dee-duper. I'm always proud when they add new words to their vocabularies, but it seems like every third new word is one that they can't say in church. I glanced to my left, and noticed a nice looking older couple in an expensive sedan waving at my daughters. I could see from their giggly grins that they thought my kids were being cute. I looked in the rearview mirror in time to see Molly sticking her tongue out, and Abby waving while chanting, "Hi, fawtheads! Hi, fawtheads!"

I'm so proud. I'm thinking about making them signs. I'm already out of the running for Mother of the Year, so I might as well make my children useful. Next time I'm stuck in traffic, I'll give them signs to hold up to other drivers. I think I'll start with a pair of signs, one for each girl. Molly can hold "You're ugly," and Abby can hold, "and your momma dresses you funny." I'd laugh if I saw that while driving. Then again, I have a sick, sick sense of humor.

My kids are going to wind up on YouTube one day. I just hope they're more popular than the Britney Spears guy.