Miklos and I were taking our daughter with her young son to celebrate her birthday. She choose a restaurant that was walking distance from her apartment, and that we could reach without driving through the financial district in San Francisco. Unfortunately, my GPS gave me the shortest route rather than the fastest.

I was stuck in heavy Friday evening rush hour traffic. Miklos was not at his best. He was reading every sign, sometimes in Hunglish (reading the English word using the Hungarian phonetic system). Sometimes, he would mumble nonsense syllables. Sometimes, he would deliberately change the words around to be funny — and a couple of times, he actually was funny. Most of the time he was just annoying.

And he wanted to tell every driver on the road how to drive, including me! It was all very distracting to me as I was trying the navigate the city traffic. It was exhausting.

Unfortunately, it didn’t end with dinner. Our daughter suggested that instead of having dessert at the restaurant, we could go to a nearby ice cream store that has really interesting flavors. I don’t think Miklos heard or understood what was going to happen.

I found a very convenient parking place, but as I started to pull in, I noticed a sign. I paused so that I could read the sign and make sure it was a legal parking place. Miklos was agitated and asked “What on earth are you doing?” I tried to tell him, but he couldn’t hear and understand. He kept being rather agitated. Our daughter spoke up from the back seat, saying, “Just let Mom drive.”

Then he looked around and said “What are we doing here? This isn’t a safe area.” It was a safe area — just an urban rather than a suburban area. It was a typical urban neighborhood — shops and offices closed for the weekend, a convenience store, apartments and the ice cream shop. There were pedestrians, including families and women walking alone and not seeming very apprehensive.

When we got the the ice cream store, all the tables were taken by lovely family groups — not a sign of a threatening person anywhere. Fortunately, one group was leaving just as we got our ice cream, one of the tables was vacated.

We dropped Corinna and Arlo at their apartment, and began the drive home, Once again, Miklos provided a non-stop commentary on all the drivers, most especially me. It was exhausting. As we neared home, I took one turn too quickly and hit the curb — not something I do very often, but I was very tired, and tired of being criticized and distracted.

Miklos shouted, “What’s the matter, don’t you know how to drive anymore.” And he continued in that fashion until I was ready to pull into the garage. I stopped as the garage door was opening and slammed my hands on the wheel. I said, “Just let me drive. Leave me alone.” He did. He got out of the car, slammed the door, and went into the house, leaving me to gather up his jacket and all the left-overs he insisted on bringing home.

It was not my finest moment. I know that his anxiety and even his constant babbling are part of the disease. It is not his fault. I remind myself of that often — It’s not his fault, he’s doing the best he can. Sometimes, it’s just too much.

A few minutes after I came into the house, Miklos came to apologize for losing his temper, but not for the back-seat driving that had caused me to lose mine. I also apologized. He had probably forgotten by the next day.