Night Driving

My mom has a boyfriend.



She has gone on dates with gentlemen in the past, but nothing serious. This time, her special man has told her he thinks he might be in love, and when Mom tried to break it off because she was afraid of a serious relationship, he sent her the sweetest little card you ever saw. So she's giving the guy a second chance.



And going out of town with him to a family reunion this weekend.



She has assured me that she has assured him there will be "no funny business". In fact, she made it clear to me that they were going to be in separate bedrooms and that she hasn't even kissed him yet.



I find this disturbing on so many levels.



The highlight, though, is a little something she said the other night when she was talking about whether or not she and this guy have a future.



For those of you who don't watch 30 Rock, there was an episode recently where Alec Baldwin's character, Jack, was arguing with his senior-citizen mother about her new boyfriend, who is technically married to someone else and thus not the type of man Jack would like his mother to date.



Jack's spit-fire mom gets defensive about what she sees as a catch and says,



"A guy like Paul, who can drive at night? You just don't say no to that!"

Jason and I cracked up at that at the time.

So, days later, I'm on the phone with mom and she's wondering where her relationship is going and whether or not she wants to have a man in her life. She really enjoys being her own woman. Plus, with this guy living 45 minutes away, it's a long-distance relationship of sorts.

"I don't know how long this thing is going to last," she said. "I mean, neither one of us drives at night."

I actually had to put the phone down for a second to laugh. Is driving at night really such a huge relationship issue to our senior citizens? How tragic. And funny.