The story you are about to read is real. The names have not been changed to protect the innocent. I have been harboring this story for many years. Racked with guilt, shame, and embarrassment, I told no one. Then I hit 40 and stopped giving a you know what. I thought, there HAVE to be other moms out there with similar stories. Crazy, disasterous, somewhat unbelievable type stories that happened when ‘mom brain’ was at its peak. But like me, they’ve just been too ashamed to talk about it. Well I say no more! Let us not be shamed into silence, but rather commiserate in our sleep deprived, caffeine fueled, mood swinging state, and let the world know that mom brain is in fact, no joke. Please join me as we journey back to 2018, to a little restaurant on the Eastside of Cincinnati, called Sonic.
It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and I had fewer greys in my hair than ever. The weather was perfect for sitting on the back patio, sipping your favorite cocktail, and watching the kids fight in the backyard. Brian had just cleaned the grill so our steaks would be cooked to perfection (medium rare in case you’re wondering), just in time for the in-laws to join us for dinner. At the time we had three daughters, ages six, four, and three. We had just gotten home from church and I had to run to the store and pick up a cake. My oldest daughter asked if she could join me. We hopped in the minivan and off we went. As we were driving my stomach began to growl with hunger. I had been going all morning, it was well past lunchtime, and the only thing I had in my stomach was coffee and a handful of SweeTarts. I looked back at my daughter and asked if she was hungry. She nodded her head in excitement so we made a little detour. I wanted something quick and easy so I drove across the street and pulled my beautiful black boat into one of the empty stalls at Sonic. I stared at the large, brightly lit, visually overstimulating menu in front of me. My six year old shouted out her request, and with that, I pushed the button. I placed our orders, slipped my card into the reader, and sat back as we waited for someone to bring us our food.
“Hi Ma’am. I got a cheeseburger, a kids meal and two milkshakes.”
“Great, thanks!”
“Here you go. Would you like any ketchup with your fries?”
“No, I think we’re good! Have a nice day!”
I tossed the kids’ meal to the back with a warning not to add to the pile of crushed up chips, goldfish, twelve half empty water bottles, and melted fruit snacks that had become one with the floorboard. I put the van in reverse, looked over my right shoulder and turned the wheel to the right. I hit the gas ever so slightly and begin to back out. I immediately heard a high pitched scraping noise. Much like the sound of metal grinding against metal. I hit the brakes, wondering if someone hit me. I look back and quickly realize no other cars are even close. It was me. I hit the side of my own van. On the Sonic menu sign next to me. I pause for a moment, telling myself it’s just a scrape, and decide to start over. I’ll just pull back up and try again. I put it in drive and hit the gas. There it is again. Metal against metal. My heart starts to pick up the pace and I begin to feel a little flushed. Did I turn on the heat? I tell myself to remain calm. There might be a little paint damage and a small dent. Nothing that can’t be popped out and fixed with a sharpie. Let me just turn the wheel to the left. Well I’ll be damned. There it is again. My body temperature begins to rise and my armpits start to sweat. Why is it so hot in here? Now is not the time to panic. It’s fine. I’m fine. Just back out, Kristen. Just back out like you’ve done a hundred times before. I straighten the wheel, put it in reverse and hit the gas. Nope. That’s definitely not it. I begin to realize that with every pump of the gas pedal I’m just making it worse. Um, maybe I should turn the wheel to the right? Yeah, no. That’s not even close to where I want to be. I can hear the sliding passenger door crushing inward with each turn of the wheel and pump of the gas. Again, I tell myself to remain calm. But it’s too late. I’ve hit fight-or-flight mode. My brain said, “I don’t know what you’re doing, but this is above my pay grade.” It just shut down, packed up, and left. As if to say “I’m sorry, it’s too late; I can’t help you now.” I get out to assess the damage. Oh, God. It’s worse than I thought. The sign might as well be inside my van. I’m stuck. On a Sonic menu. A large, brightly lit, easy to see, stationary Sonic menu. And my passenger side door looks like someone beat it with a sledgehammer. I look around to see if anyone has noticed. To see if anyone happened to notice the black van parked on top of the sign that is located directly across from the drive thru window. There were about twenty strangers staring directly at me, each with their own bucket of popcorn, just waiting to see what was going to happen next. I lower my head and get back in the car, contemplating my next move. A little voice pipes up from the back, “mom, is everything ok?” Shit! I have a kid in the car! She’s just sitting there, eating her fries, slurping her milkshake, a look of concern across her face. I look back, wipe the sweat from my brow, and lie to her. “Everything is fine. Mommy had a little oopsie but it’s nothing to be worried about.” I take a deep breath, throw up a Hail Mary, and decide to turn the wheel to the right one more time. Or should it be to the left? Or should I pull forward some more? OMG why don’t I know which way to turn the steering wheel to get my car out of a stall that I’ve parked in hundreds of times before? Maybe I’ll just put it in reverse, slam on the gas, and just scrape the entire right side of my car until I’m off the sign. I’ll worry about the damage later. Yep, that sounds like a plan.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a car pulls in a few stalls down (I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to park right next to me either). He gets out, leaving his girlfriend in the front seat, and runs in front of my van waving his arms and shaking his head. He mouths the words “STOP! OMG STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING!” I roll down my window. I look at him and open my mouth to say something, but no words come out. There’s a “gone fishin'” sign where my brain used to be. He tells me to put it in park and just wait for a second.
Nice Gentleman: “I think you’re making it worse.”
Me: “Yep. I think you’re right. Um…I’m not really sure what happened but now I don’t know which way to turn the steering wheel to get out.” I seriously said that out loud.
The next thing I know, another man begins walking towards us from the opposite side. He starts surveying the damage. “You got it on there pretty good.” he says with a slight chuckle. I have no response. Nothing. An awkward, blank stare was all I could muster.
He can see the mix of terror, frustration, and bewilderment on my face. “Hold on, now. We’ll get you off this thing.” What is happening? How did I end up here?
I look back and can see the cars slowing down to look at me. Some are literally pointing at me, mouths agape. The nice gentleman in front of my car, his girlfriend, is on her phone. I can hear her telling the person on the other end what she’s witnessing. Seeing her cell phone, it hits me. What if someone calls child protective services? OMG, someone is going to come here and think I’m being negligent. They’re going to think I went out day drinking and got hungry on the way home. Why else would someone RUN THEIR VAN UP ONTO A STATIONARY SIGN? I tell the nice gentlemen I’m going to make a quick phone call. I dial my husband.
Me: Be cool. It’s fine. Everything is fine. Think before you speak. CHOOSE. YOUR. WORDS. WISELY. “Hey.” I say, breathing heavily into the phone. “Um. I hit a Sonic menu. Like, uh, a sign. A Sonic sign. With the van. And now I’m stuck.” No! Dammit! You don’t lead with that!
Brian: “Um…I’m sorry. What now?”
Me: “Um, so, we went to Sonic to get something to eat real quick and I was trying to back out and I guess I turned the wheel too far or at the wrong angle and…yeah….now I’m stuck on a sign. Like, one of the large menu signs.”
Brian: Silence
Me: (tears welling up) “Can you just come here. Like, just come over here please because people are trying to help me but I think we’re just making it worse and people are staring and I just don’t even know. I don’t know which way to turn the steering wheel!”
Brian: Silence. He can hear the panic in my voice. “Um…ok. Let me pack up the kids and we’ll be there in a few.”
Now, he probably wanted to ask some more probing questions as any husband would, but he knew he wouldn’t get a straight, coherent answer. So he just said ok. Not a hint of surprise in his voice. He works quite well under pressure. I hang up just in time to see the Sonic server headed my way. Jesus. It feels like people are swarming my car, drawing even more attention. The two gentlemen are now both in front of my van, talking to each other, gesturing with their arms and nodding their heads. They motion for me to come over – they think they have a plan. So with one guy in front, one on the side, and the Sonic worker in the back, they guide me. Up a little. Now stop. Turn the wheel left (he actually makes the turning wheel motion with his hands and I can’t even be mad at him). I feel like I’m doing the damn Cupid Shuffle but instead of being drunk at a wedding, I’m completely sober driving a minivan, two minutes shy of a panic attack. Bit by bit, scrape by scrape, I feel the van break free. I thank them profusely. I offer to buy them food. I try to give them money. They won’t accept. I need them to understand the gravity of what they have just done for me. They accept my thank you’s, wish me luck, and tell me to be safe. Seems fitting. The server comes over to my window, “Don’t worry, hon. You’d be surprised how often this happens.” She says with a smile. I force a chuckle as I know she’s just trying to be kind. “I’m sure. I bet sixteen year olds with a fresh new drivers license in their pocket do it all the time.”
I can’t get out of there fast enough. I call Brian to tell him not to come after all – that I’m off the sign. He says ok, as if he completely understands what I’m talking about. I hang up and instantly feel the tears start to roll down my face. My daughter quietly asks if I’m ok. That just makes me cry even harder. We drive home in silence. I pull in the driveway to find Brian already outside waiting. He looks at me, still crying, looks over at the side of the van, then back at me. He asks if we’re ok. I just nod my head yes. He wasn’t angry. Not mad. Maybe a little perplexed, but overall calm considering the shape of the right side of our minivan. He tells me it’s ok. It’s just a van. It can be fixed. I start to ugly cry. I can’t catch my breath. My brain is still out fishing somewhere. He then tells me his mom and her husband are on their way. They’ll be arriving in about five minutes. Dear God, no. He tells me to go upstairs, take as much time as I need, and when I come down we’ll start dinner. I head upstairs to our bedroom, shut the door, sit down in the rocking chair, and just cry for what seemed like an hour. I couldn’t have stopped the tears if I had wanted to.
When we become moms our minds and bodies transform in unfathomable ways. We are forever changed. And so are our brains. It’s almost as if there’s not enough room to hold all the information anymore so it just picks and chooses what it thinks is important to hang onto. Apparently backing your car out is not as important as I thought. We have endless to-do lists. It’s like one giant post-it note in our head and every time you scratch something off, you add five more things in its place. Soon everything starts to run together and you find yourself completely overwhelmed. Your brain tries to preserve itself so it hangs up the “gone fishin'” sign and takes some time off. “Mom brain” settles in. And that’s when some really weird stuff starts happening. I’ve also heard this referred to as the ‘mental load’. On this particular day my mental load looked something like this: Did I start the laundry before I left? Did I add garlic to the grocery list? Did I wash Charlotte’s soccer jersey because she has a game tomorrow? It starts at 10:00. But we’ll need to leave by 9:00 because I have to drop Vivian off at the dance studio before soccer and then…crap. Did I buy lunch meat because I need to send her with a packed lunch because we are not spending $10 on a turkey sandwich that I can make at home for $1? Did Brian write that $10 check for Annabelle’s field trip? That was due last week, etc, etc. This is all going on inside my head while I’m operating a large motor vehicle. Throw in a little sleep deprivation, add a weeks worth of meal planning (and food purchasing and cooking for the week), sprinkle in some random song lyrics from 1995, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. So, before you go driving your car into a sign, take note and allow yourself to be frustrated, feel like you’re failing at life, realize you’re actually not, and then organize your mental list. Or just go pawn most of it off on your husband. And if you need to sit in silence and cry uncontrollably for an hour while everyone else is downstairs waiting for dinner, then that is 100% what you do.
Later that afternoon I took my red, puffy eyes downstairs and joined my family for dinner. We ate on paper plates, used plastic utensils, and everyone got their own drinks. We sat on the back patio and ate and drank and watched the girls fight with each other. I’d like to say we had cake afterwards but I honestly can’t remember. That night I asked Brian what he told his mom when she asked what happened to the van. He told her it was a hit and run.
$3,000 and two weeks later I drove off the repair shop lot with a spankin’ new sliding passenger door. And two years later, I came downstairs to tell Brian I was pregnant again. He went upstairs and I didn’t see him for about an hour.
Don’t underestimate the strange phenomenon that is “mom brain”. Or, to quote the great Ice Cube, “you better check yourself before you wreck yourself.”
Support Local Minds
Before you go: Did you enjoy Kristen’s story? Kristen is not just a talented writer—she’s also your neighbor, and her voice is one of many local talents that deserves to be lifted up. Even a small donation can make a big difference, inspiring her to continue writing and sharing her unique stories. Supporting local minds like Kristen’s ensures that authentic, heartfelt perspectives from our community are heard. If her story resonated with you, please consider donating to keep her voice strong. Every bit helps! Buy Kristen a coffee or a car by visiting her personal Givebutter donation page right here.
Also, send all your love or hate mail over to Kristen at kflorko@gmail.com. She’d love to hear from you. And give her a follow on Facebook, here.
Finally, do you want to share a story on Beechmont Stories? I’m alway looking for local voices. Send me your pitch to brian@beechmontstories.com
- Meltdowns, Minivans, and Milkshakes - January 22, 2025
- 16 Years of Marriage: Miscommunication, Meltdowns, and Sweetart Fusions - October 25, 2024
