TBT: Driving Miss Mullet

Driving lessons+ Abuelito+chickie-mullet+flirty street rats=FUN IN PR!

*(photo credit: Luis Angel Vidal, my own disc camera)

For 2 or 3 summers in a row I was one lucky fly-girl.  I got to spend the vacation in Puerto Rico with my grandparents.

My month-and-a-half on the gorgeous Caribbean island that my Dad’s side of the family has called home for over 5 generations had all the makings of an 80’s movie trailer –

ROMANCE – I kissed the cute neighbor-boy from down the block.  He stopped by every morning before school since they started in August and we would sit on the porch and chat (aka mostly make out).

DRAMA – I kissed the cute neighbor-boy from down the block and was busted by my proper Catholic grandmother. She lied and said a friend from across the street told her; probably in an effort to protect herself from flack for spying on me.  I was fifteen, after all… We’re all drama-queens regardless of decade.

SUSPENSE – I made vague, angry threats to that lady across the street. Something to the tune of, “That old witch better mind her own damn BIZNESS!”  Or else WHAT, I wasn’t entirely sure but I was so mad my grandmother ultimately fessed up to catching us herself.  I will spare you the lecture, but let’s just say when she told me 4 years earlier not to hang out with boys because they “just want to have fun” I totally didn’t get it (fun? I like fun – I’m eleven!).  It made more sense at fifteen but that doesn’t mean I didn’t roll my eyes at her.

ADVENTURE – The previous summer I almost got struck by lightning.  A bunch of us (along with that cute neighbor I kissed) were all down the block at the park. I had a habit of walking around barefoot, so when all the boys started yelling for us to run since a storm was approaching I was the last one out. They were cheering me on from under my grandparents’ porch overhang and, as I ran down the middle of the street, the lightning struck the ground RIGHT BEHIND ME. I’m pretty sure both my feet left the ground… Even MORE awesome? – That my grandparents didn’t see.

That summer I realized that the drama quotient had increased directly in relation to my bra size – not too much (I’ve always been a proud member of the I.B.T.C.) but just enough to require some lightweight wrangling. Like an Underoos upgrade…

THE CUTE NEIGHBOR: Roxanne, Roxanne! BUST ‘DIS!!

So, to keep me thoroughly distracted from cutie-from-the-block my Grandpa taught me how to drive his ginormous Chevy Nova.  This was beyond awesome to me since I didn’t have my permit yet so we had to go to some empty lot next to shack-housing for the “disadvantaged”.  When I was propositioned by a local street-kid in a language I barely understood (“Un cantito de pollo..” was what he requested from my grandfather) grandpa said it was time to go.  😉