On Second Thought

“I see you had a hard brake today.”

“No, actually it was a really good day. My heart wasn’t broken once.”

“No. Hard. Brake. You hit your brakes too hard.”

“Why are you stalking me?”

That was a conversation between my husband and I the night we changed auto insurance and downloaded some voodoo stuff on my phone that allows them - and him, I now know - to know my exact whereabouts, hard brakes, hard starts, how long I talked on the phone whilst driving and other intrusive heartbreaks.

The good news here is that it doesn’t monitor dancing activity or hand gestures, so I have that going for me.

The problem is, it doesn’t go both ways.

I do not have his driving particulars so that I can get all Perry Mason up on him, and ask him what in the world he was doing at 3:58 p.m. that caused him to slam on his brakes, and exactly who were you talking to for 1:06?

“They tell you everything I do while I’m driving?,” I ask him as I check my insurance app to see if this is an equitable deal. It is not.

“Yes,” he said, with a little too much glee in his laugh. He seems far too satisfied with this latest development. “Can you see your driving grade? It’s a B+!”

His grade is allegedly an A. I wouldn’t know.

“We must smash the patriarchy. Today,” I say as I mentally prepare myself to drive my car like I’m carrying the Vatican’s boiled Easter eggs.