Ride Share

It was a simple visit to Sears at SouthPark Mall. We needed vacuum cleaner bags or a part for the lawn mower. I can’t recall for sure.

What I do remember is that day changed our lives.

Denton was about a year old. Greg and I were on a mission in the lower level of Sears and the department that housed outdoor furniture, grills, vacuum cleaners, lawn loot, and toys.

Not all the toys. Not the books and stuffed animals nor the Rescue Heroes or LEGOs.

The toys with wheels: bikes, trikes, and what would soon become lovingly known at our house as the...

...Zoom Buggy.

Bright red with a blue handle, yellow hood, plastic everything. I lowered it down from the short shelf, placed my towheaded toddler behind the wheel, buckled him in, and life as we knew it shifted.

He. Wasn’t. Budging.

We literally had to purchase the rig with Denton still sitting in it and wheel him through the store, into the parking lot, and out to my Isuzu.

Today the officially-termed “Step 2 Push Around Buggy” can be purchased for about $80. It now features wide white eyes + a curvy happy smile. Classic red for the dudes, and a pink and purple option with a lipstick pucker for pint-size preschool prisses.

But in 2000, ours came with a horn, a gas cap, and unlimited miles per gallon.

It went everywhere.

Dawg’s Zoom Buggy logged thousands of miles around our neighborhood. Driveways became highways. Cul-de-sacs became pit stops. Backyards converted to off-road courses. Before long, they all got a turn behind the wheel.

Even a badass adult or two took it for a spin. #missingjen

And Denton let them.

That’s the part I do remember.

For a little boy who initially refused to climb out of his prized ride (his step bros can attest to his…, um, pumping the brakes on sharing toys), he eventually learned to scoot over (or out) and make room for others. The Zoom Buggy became less about the toy and more about the trip and its passengers.

Sure he outgrew it, as always happens, and the ZB eventually moved spaces to sweet Syd’s driveway next door. 👇🏻

At 27, he still loves his wheels. He drives a cool white pickup for work. (“Den-ton’s truck!” Beau exclaims at the sighting of ANY white truck, not just his uncle’s.) And Denton treasures the vintage Jeep Wrangler handed down by his beloved Mont-Mont.

But somewhere in the fleet between the Zoom Buggy and the Jeep, as he grew, and matured, and lived, something even better happened.

He became a giver. A sharer. A selfless soul.

I observe and purely, maternally adore that this is why his bride, her family, and her young cousins adore him so. Why everyone does. Sure, he’s fun. And funny. And darn cute. But I suspect it’s because we all know he’ll always make room. With his time, his attention, his laughter, and his heart—as generously as he once shared that little red Zoom Buggy.

And now, as he prepares to become a daddy himself, I can’t help but wonder what kind of wheels will capture his little one’s imagination.

What will stop her in her tracks? Perhaps it will be a tricycle? A seat on the back of Coco’s Cannondale? Her own pink Zoom Buggy? (I bet she’ll fancy a 1972 Ford Bronco…just sayin’.)

Whatever it is, I hope she inherits more than a love of things that go zoom.

Lucky little nugget. She gets the best thing ever: to one day ride shotgun.

Man, he adored that Buggy. But he figured out, all by himself, that the best rides in life aren’t the ones we keep. They’re the ones we share.