Keep Your Hands

When I was young, my grandmother told me to not stick my hand out the window while she was driving. When I asked why, she would say that my arm would fly off and I’d never get it back. I thought about what would happen if my arm fell off, I thought that I would inevitably bleed out and die if I stuck my hand out the window. I used to always yell at my sister when she did it, or I would get scared if someone else passed us with their hand out the window, thinking that their hand might fall off at any moment.

Eventually, when I was a bit older my grandmother told me that it was just a trick to keep my hands inside the car. So she didn’t have to announce that she was going to roll up the windows. It was pretty ridiculous that I believed it, especially because at that time only a little over my palm fit out of the window, it was not possible to have anything hit my hand at that age. Now that I’m older I put my hand out the window, and every once in a while I still feel bad about judging the strangers I saw putting their hand out the window when I was younger.