Crimes Against My Humanity

Moon n 1. The natural satellite of the earth, 5. Any disk, globe, or crescent resembling the moon. (Let’s fly to the moon.)

To Moon v 1. The act of smashing your pimply nether regions against the glass of the window of a quickly moving vehicle, on the turnpike. (Mom, that idiot just mooned us; speed up so we can get his license plate number and report him to the authorities.)

Moonstruck n 1. Believing the authorities care.

My daughters and I were assaulted on the turnpike. Do you want the facts of the assault or the resulting trauma?

By the way, the word “assault” means roughly “vulgar things that happen to you without your permission,” or in the Vulgar Latin it means vulgar people without their pants on.

Okay, the facts of the assault. On first glance we were a pretty cute group: Heather was 8.10 months pregnant, Maren was newly engaged, and I had wrinkles older than the combined ages of the assaulters. Whatever the reason, we were picked out of the never-ending stream of turnpike traffic.

Heather recognized that we were being followed by a van full of lunatics (get it—lunatics, lunar, moon) when she said, “Mom, get away from this jerk; he’s about to run us off the road.”

Looking back I noticed we were being followed by a van with its lights on. I could tell the lights were on because they were shining inside my trunk.

“What a lunatic,” I muttered through grinding teeth.

I slowed down so that the lunatic could pass me and get on with his very important life. The lunatic slowed down.

“Mom, switch lanes; he’s not going around,” Maren said, shooting the lunatic dirty looks through the rear window of the car. Her hands were clenched around an imaginary neck. I switched lanes.

He switched lanes.

This disturbed me so much that I tried to shoot him the evil eye through my rear-view window, which caused me to lose focus on the semi-tractor trailer in front of us. I stomped on the brakes. Lunatic boy stomped on his brakes. I changed lanes. He changed lanes. I slowed down. He slowed down. I almost ran off the road. He laughed. I wished for super hero powers like laser beam eyes.

Maren sighed, “Oh good, he’s finally passing.” She sank back into her seat, closing her eyes, exhausted.

Then without warning, Heather screamed, “Oh no, no, no!” She flung her hands up to shield her face. “An enormous, hairy, pimply a**.” Then she clutched her swollen abdomen as if to protect the innocent child within.

I looked at her face and what I saw there will go with me to the grave. The horror! The horror! Well, that and the fact that I’d never heard Heather use the “A” word—ever. It was pretty shocking.

Maren yelled, “Speed up! Let’s catch them. We’ll take pictures of them with our camera phones.”

“And then what? Make posters!” I held the steering wheel steady. “No, face it girls, we were mooned.”

I paused for effect and then said, “You know they could be a van full of sex slavers trying to crash us, steal us, and sell us.”

They both rolled their eyes.

“Let’s go to the mall,” I said.

“To the mall,” Maren chirped.

“To the mall,” Heather moaned.

To the mall,” I concurred.

And away we went to the mall. But be warned, somewhere out there is a van full of sex slavers looking to crash, steal, and sell a likely looking car full of girl types, or just a van full of bored college kids trying to impress each other with their bare-bottomed daring and dash. Either way, they’re lunatics.

Linda (Green Cheese) Zern