I blink—

Or at least that’s what I thought I did

But when I open my eyes

I realize my car has traveled—

Into a different lane

My heart starts racing

The adrenaline waking me up—

At least for a little bit

I need to keep myself alert!

My daughter fast asleep in the back seat

It’s nearly five in the morning

And we’re on 101 in San Rafael

No more than twenty minutes from home

But my eyelids are so darn heavy

I’m having a really hard time keeping it together

And staying awake—

After the night we had

See my daughter had gotten sick at summer camp

So sick that she needed to come home

But summer camp was up in the mountains

They brought the kids up in buses

So it was at a place we’d never been

And a place that might not even be reachable—

Given the limited range of our electric car

We didn’t know this at the time

But I had a strong suspicion

So I was already changing the car’s settings

You know to conserve battery

When my wife arrived

Bringing her usual barrage of arguments:

I won’t be comfortable if you put the climate in range mode

I can’t drive the car with regenerative braking set to standard

I’m not okay with creep mode turned off

So we’re having this knock-down drag-out argument

Over the car settings

Right here in the Richmond BART parking lot

And by now we’re getting so boisterous

That we’re attracting the attention of the local transients

Meeting at BART wasn’t a great plan

But it was the plan we cooked up

When we got the call from summer camp

My wife took BART over from her office in The City

Meanwhile I drove the aging Tesla Model S from San Anselmo

And now with our daughter grievously ill

Stuck at camp in the mountains

We couldn’t agree upon the car’s settings

And with my wife

Everything was always totally fine with her—

As long as we agreed

But things were different now

My daughter had become way more important to me

In fact I had already left my wife—

For a woman half her age

And she knew it

Because I had moved out

And was living on a houseboat

With three other men

And a parrot named Zulu

Who would make texting sounds

Woop woop

And then watch all four of us take out our phones out like idiots

So anyway while living on a houseboat

And looking for a place to live with my new girlfriend

The gloves had really come off

Some part of me used to hold back

You know in these three- or four- or five-a-day fights

But here I was swinging below the belt

Letting it rip

Like I said things were different now

Get the fuck out of the car I said

What?

You heard me: get the fuck out!

What am I supposed to do?

I don’t care, call an Uber

And with that I left my irate soon-to-be ex-wife

Standing in the parking lot of the Richmond BART station

A fragile and helpless white lady—

Surrounded by a cast of unsavory characters

But I didn’t care

Because like I said

I was through with her

And her authoritarian horseshit

All I cared about now was my daughter

And my new girlfriend

On the way up I-5 I stopped for a charge in Roseville

So far everything was going according to plan—

In fact much better because I had left my wife in Richmond

But as I climbed deep into the mountains

Over roads that became increasingly more desolate

I watched the remaining miles on the battery tick down and down

As I stared into the blackness all around me

The GPS led me to a left turn off the main road

I thought for sure I had arrived at the driveway of summer camp

But instead I was treated to six miles of rocky and crumbling dirt roads—

In a low-profile sedan

By the time I finally arrived at camp I had 34 miles left on the car

Fortunately we were headed back down from the mountains

And as it turns out Teslas are really fun to drive downhill

They just kinda go forever

Picking up range—

From gravity

But charging a Tesla can be an adventure

Taking from an hour to a couple of days

Depending on what you plug it into

So 34 miles of range

Even coming down from the mountains

Wasn’t enough to make it to a supercharger

You know the thing that can charge the car in under an hour

But I managed to find a slower charger on the Tesla map

So my sick daughter and I exited the highway with seven miles of range to spare

Only to find that the road leading to the charger was closed for construction

After a few moments of complete panic

I found a little hotel in Grass Valley

Just within range

We limped into the parking lot with three miles remaining

They had a slow Tesla charger

Meant for overnight use

It was for guests only

But the receptionist took pity on me and my sick daughter

And let us use it—

For more than two hours

Meanwhile my daughter’s fever broke and she got hungry

But there was nothing anywhere near us serving food—

Not at 2:30am

So I grabbed my electric skateboard and a bunch of lights

From the frunk

(That’s short for front trunk)

(You know where the engine would be if this were a gas car)

And I e-skated a few miles down the road

To the nearest IHOP

Bringing back a clamshell of mac-and-cheese

And some cut fruit

In a plastic bag that shimmered in the glow of my helmet light

As I coursed through the inky blackness

Wondering if any of this

Was a good idea

Even in the slightest

By the time I got back my daughter was feeling gross again

And I end up eating most of the food myself

But the car reported that it would be able to make it Rockland soon

Where we could fill up in under forty minutes at a supercharger

And then make it home

Maybe with a quick stop in Vallejo

For fifteen more minutes of charging

So we hit the road

My daughter looking green

And me thanking the hotel receptionist profusely

Now we’re almost at the Richmond-San Rafael bridge

When the crazy night we’ve had finally starts to catch up with me

The drowsiness hits me

Like a heavy snowfall

On a motionless night

I squeeze one butt cheek

And then the other

Doing a little shimmy in my seat

And I start singing the first song that pops into my head

Which of course is Baby Shark

Its goofy repetitive loop

Sounding more like a lullabye—

With each stupid verse

After waking up in another lane

I resort to repeatedly slapping myself across the face

As hard as I can tolerate

I open the window

And my mouth

Sticking my tongue out

And trying to shake the drowsiness off of me

Like water from a wet dog

In spite of all of my efforts

I do in fact fall sound asleep behind the wheel

The car decelerates

And my sleeping daughter and I drift from the left lane

Into the right shoulder

Suddenly I’m jolted awake

By an incredibly loud burst of sound

My phone is ringing!

I steer the car

A few inches from the concrete barrier

Safely back onto the highway

My daughter is somehow still passed out in the back seat

Mind you it’s nearly 5am

But my new girlfriend couldn’t sleep

Because she was worried about me and my daughter

And so she stayed on the phone with me

Until we were safely home

In a few days my daughter recovers

But things with the wife never do

The just get progressively worse

In fact it takes me years to extract myself from that mess

And in some ways I’m still not fully out

Plus my daughter is still very much in it

As it turns out—

Summer camp is not the only thing

She needs rescuing from