The tiny injustices of parenthood are too many to count — wearing formula stains to work, refereeing tantrums in Walmart, fielding the you’re-to-stupid-to-breathe-my-air eye rolls and having to eat the gummed, lint-covered vanilla wafer in the middle of church service before your kid can stick it in the hair of the woman sitting in front of her, who just happened to be the pastor’s wife.

Oh, that last one was just me?

But we’ve all been there. After 15 years and 353 days as a parent, I thought I was fairly experienced.

I’d grown cocky, even.

I wasn’t prepared for the biggest injustice to date — handing over the keys to the car.

I thought I was. Really I did.

I was fine when I was teaching Shannon to drive. Well, besides some persistent nausea, the twitch in my brake-stomping foot and those nightmares.

But mostly fine.

Then we started car shopping.

Still fine because this was shopping — an area I knew.

Shannon hadn’t let me shop with her since she turned 12 and decided my familiarity with knits made me an inappropriate fashion consultant so, in a way, it was kind of fun except for those car guys who kept trying to sell us cars.

The problem came when we actually bought a car in preparation for the big day when she could drive it.

We bought a used car and I kept picturing the transmission dropping out in the middle of the road somewhere.

My stomach churned.

Shannon’s face glowed.