“Happiness is not a destination. It is a journey, pure and simple.” ~ Ivory Soap wrapper

Friday was Jacob’s last day of summer school, and I decided to treat him to a smoothie as a reward for working hard. “I’ve got a surprise,” was all I had told him. We drove east down Main Street, and pulled into a parking space in front of Jamba Juice. I glanced over at Jacob, expecting to see him smiling. His response was not what I had anticipated. In a voice that couldn’t mask his obvious disappointment, he said, “Oh. I thought we were going to test drive a Solstice.” (Ever since he had seen the first Transformers movie, he’d been begging me to take him for a ride in Pontiac’s very cool sports car). We had driven past Erickson Pontiac on the way to Jamba Juice, but I never imagined Jacob would think that was where we were headed.

Following an impulse to make a nine-year-old boy happy--and not knowing whether they actually had a Solstice--I put the car in reverse and drove to the Pontiac dealership. There, on a raised platform for all the world to admire, was a shiny, red convertible--a top-of-the-line, turbo-charged, six-cylinder, leather-trimmed, fully loaded Solstice. Jacob was beaming in anticipation. We walked into the showroom and approached the first salesman we saw. I explained to him that I was on a date with this young man and all he wanted was to have a ride in the car parked out front. He said that could be arranged. He got the key and a dealer plate, and asked if we’d like the top up or down. Jacob and I looked at each other, then said, “Down!” We wanted the full wind-in-our-hair experience.

The salesman carefully drove the car down the ramp to the parking lot, then turned it over to us for a few brief moments of what can best be described as unbridled driving euphoria (I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my parents for not owning any automatic transmission cars when I was learning to drive, otherwise this story would have a very sad ending--the Solstice had a five speed manual transmission). As we pulled out of the parking lot and into traffic, my ears were filled with the sound of joyous giggles--Jacob’s, and mine. We drove along country roads to our home where we could show the car to Hayden and Cameron, then took Highway 20 back to the dealership. As we headed north, I was tempted to turn our short joy ride into a longer road trip to Yellowstone--or maybe even Canada. But we reluctantly returned the Solstice to its rightful owner, got in our rather-tame-by-comparison Hyundai, and drove back to Jamba Juice, where we reveled in the memory of our excursion over postponed smoothies.

The drive had been exhilarating, and the look of pure pleasure on Jacob’s face was priceless. But what I loved most was when he turned to me and said, “Thanks, Mom. You made my dream come true.”