Channeling Phil Collins
By Nancy Muldoon
After suffering a stroke ten years ago, my mother does not drive; in fact, in New York State it is illegal for anyone with a massive head injury to operate a motor vehicle.
Anyone who has driven through downtown Saratoga lately knows full well that there are quite a number of people blatantly breaking that law, but as long as your brain can still spell the letters D-M-V on a check you can without a doubt get a license here in the fine state of New York. But I digress, that’s not what this essay is about.
Good citizen that I am, because my mother does not drive, yours truly Citizen Nancy drives her mom around town to run errands.
For some strange reason whenever my mother is in my car, she seems to think I know every single artist who sings whatever pop song happens to be playing on my car stereo. She will consistently ask me, “Nancy is this Phil Collins?’ Thankfully, it almost never is, but I have to laugh out loud sometimes when I have to exclaim, “Are you kidding me? It’s Gloria Estefan!!
It’s comical because I realize my mother isn’t playing with a full deck, but Phil Collins and Gloria Estefan aren’t even the same genre of music not mention they are not the same gender and sound NOTHING alike.
Then there was the time I was driving her to her doctor appointment on West Avenue and she somehow transposed two groups and she asked me if the song playing on the radio was by the Spice Chicks. I said do you mean the Spice Girls or Dixie Chicks? I don’t recall what song was playing on the radio but it was neither the Spice Girls nor Dixie Chicks.
Most of the time I smartly, turn the radio off or keep down so low that my mother can’t hear it so I don’t have to play the “who sings this song” game with my mother but I know that there will come a day when she is going to ask me for the millionth time if the song playing on the radio is by Phil Collins and one of these times I will be able to say, Oh my God, it is Phil Collins!