When my sister and I were little, we used to play “Slug Bug” in the car. See a VW Beetle, slug the person next to you as you shout it. We also grew up in the early 2000s, so we also played the same game with PT Cruisers, yelling “Tom Cruiser” to everyone in the car. When my now-husband and I were in high school, with our fresh driver’s licenses, we’d play “Padiddle” – yell it and throw your hand up when you saw a car with only one headlight.
I’d kind of forgotten about those car-spotting games of my youth, until about three years ago when my oldest son decided most vehicles on the road are worth shouting out.
It started, as with most kids, I assume, with fire trucks. Fire trucks with lights and sirens on are doubly exciting, but a fire truck without are still good too. Ambulances are also good, as they often shake our car when we pull over to let them through – definitely worth the shoutout by my son.
But as he grows older, he has new rules all the time for his game. He loves seeing a police car and will often scare me to death, screaming “POLICE!” at the top of his lungs, whether the cop has their lights on, pulling over a car behind us, or just a police officer stopping to get gas. It does not matter; it is worth shouting. I suspect this talent of spotting police officers on the road will serve him well as he gets older.
He also loves spotting “Twins,” as he calls them. This is a car that looks just like our car – same color and make. He loves waving at “Twins.” Sometimes he’ll wave at a “twin” of Mom’s car while in Dad’s car, and people look at him very confused over this excitement in the back seat. He also loves finding “Twins” for his grandparents’, aunts’, uncles’, and neighbors’ cars too.
Any type of construction vehicle deserves a shout-out. Concrete mixers, excavators, bulldozers – if they are on the road, they will get yelled at in our car.
He loves seeing the city buses with certain pictures on them – he loves seeing the advertisements for the Indy Zoo animals on the side, and he gets extra happy when he sees the ones with the Fever players on the side.
He’s finally gotten his little brother to play along, too. At two years old, he is still facing backwards in his car seat, which puts him at quite a disadvantage for our spotting. But Little Brother can spot or hear a choo-choo train and spot any airplane in the sky, so don’t count him out yet.
But if you need to score extra points in our car game, you must be ready to spot the elusive, the tricky, the often-spotted-in-a-driveway-and-not-on-the-road-so-you’d-better-be-paying-attention vehicle – a Peterman Brothers truck or van. Their friendly faces on the side, real-life celebrities for the 5-year-old who often sees them on commercials during the evening news with me – you’d better be ready to yell HARD when you see those guys on a truck. I am not sure how much they budget for advertising each year, but I can assure them it is money well spent with the preschool set.
Really, this vehicle game, with its ever-changing rules and additions, keeps our car rides a little more fun and whimsical. And once you start, even as an adult, I get really excited to spot the fire truck coming down the road first. Sometimes, the little things are the big things, and my kids remind me of that every day.
