Reasons for NEVER visiting Aunt Amy

I adore ALL of my nieces and nephews but have resigned myself to a lifetime of adoration from afar as they are scattered from Alaska to Pennsylvania with just a few living within an hour's reach. That frustrating hour has thwarted me, again and again over the years, as the busy lives of children and the hectic schedules of adults have made it seem like they live in a another country rather than just a another county.

But then...it happened. My beautiful twin nieces, Alea and Alexis, passed their driver's tests (Did I mention that they're brilliant as well?). ROAD TRIP! Destination:  Aunt Amy's!

Those who call Wyoming County home are aware of the ever-constant conditions that keep drivers sharply cautious. Tractors, deer, dogs, deer, golfcarts, gators, deer. We won't even talk about winter...but it never occured to me to warn the girls about weeds. I take full responsibility for Alexis's mild mishap. Having never actually driven to my house herself, she first drove past it, up our seasonal dirt road. I walked out my front door and watched her, in the distance, execute a flawless k-turn...except what Alexis took to be a flat field of grass was first met by a two foot deep culvert filled with three foot tall weeds. Perfectly understandable. "Do you have your shoes on," I yelled in to Brad and heard him sigh.

"What a great car," I said in admiration as Brad wiggled underneath it to hook up the tow chain. "From what I can see of it," I went on, "it looks quite stylish...even tilted at 45 degrees." Still a little out of breath from jogging back to the house, Alexis smiled uncertainly as she looked at her angled automobile. She held up her phone like she was testing for wind direction. "I still don't have a connection," she marveled, like we were in the middle of the rain forest rather than in the middle of a farm field. Brad and I glanced at each other. I had to actually bend over to successfully complete this maneuver as he was still under the car. Despite all the commercial promises, only ONE cell phone carrier semi-reliably works here in the heart of Wyoming County and obviously, my nieces were not customers. This is important, friends, as it comes back into play soon.

Thanks to the presence of my beloved nieces, Brad and I successfully towed out Alexis's car without any yelling, screaming and swearing on Brad's part or huffing, puffing, eye rolling or stomping away on mine.

We oohed and ahhed over Alea's successfully parked car...marveled over trunk room, ignored the cat hair in the back seat, and pondered appropriate mneumonics to memorize their license plate numbers. Savannah called from Connecticut during our euchre game and demanded to Facetime as my partner until I realized Brad could see my cards on the screen. Then, Savannah wanted to tour the cars so we walked her out with me holding Brad's phone awkwardly so the camera was pointed kind of in the right direction until, disgusted, my niece ripped it out of my hand and showed me that I could "flip" the camera and see what I was showing Savannah at the same time. "That's marvelous," I said.

Turns out that the younger generation doesn't know as much as they think they know about cell phones though when Alexis had to borrow mine to check in about her evening plans. "How do you text on this thing," she whispered to Sydney, staring dumbfounded at my little flip phone.

With Alexis off to play volleyball in a car that was resting at a comfortable 180 degree angle on the road ("I was named All-star in highschool," I told her, "Do

you want me to come play too?"), the rest of us headed to Letchworth State Park. As we toured "The Grand Canyon of the East," I remembered one of the twins had admitted to not really being much of a sight-seer. "That was Alexis, Aunt Amy," Alea assured me, accustomed to my idiot blunders. After a lovely visit at the park, it was time for her to go. We waved as she confidently drove off in her car, following hugs and promises that she would visit again soon.

As luck would have it, Brad and I needed to drop my truck off to be inspected in town so we were on the road not five minutes after Alea had left. Imagine my surprise when, a mile down the road, there she was, parked along the side. I rolled down my window. "I think I need some help," she said.

"I'm glad you came along," Alea admitted as we watched her uncle crawl under the car. "I couldn't get any cell phone connection and I thought I was going to have to walk back." After another successful tow, Brad signaling me in the rear view mirror to slow down, move over, or stay steady but NEVER using his middle finger in the process, we drove Alea home. "Well...that was certainly a...fun...visit," she said as we said good-bye (again). We waved as we drove away. "They're never coming back, are they?" I remarked to my husband in the darkness. God bless him, he just laughed.