I offered to take my three female friends to the nearby mall for a bubble tea treat as we were finishing a celebratory birthday lunch for one of them at a Mexican restaurant two Mondays ago.

I was humming as I approached the parking lot exit when my front-seat friend turned into a shotgun driver.

“No, don’t turn left!” she commanded. “There’s a traffic island!”

I grumbled as I quickly turned right, controlling myself from arguing with her.

“Now, you’ll have to do a U-turn at the lights, okay?”

“Yessum!” I said with a forced smile.

“Oh, no! That’s a $100-ticket!” she warned when I turned swiftly just as the yellow light turned red.

“Really!” I said, tinged with slight sarcasm.

She fell silent with a pout on her face.

“It’s about time that you treat us!” the birthday friend in the back exclaimed, oblivious of the front-seat exchange.

“It’s true!” echoed the third friend by her side.

“Okay, okay!” I interrupted.

“Oh, look!” my front-seat friend blurted out as she picked up a plastic chug lid water bottle which was rolling by her feet on the floor. “And it’s pink!” she added, waving the bottle in the air.

“Really?” chorused the friends in the back. “Pink?”

“Yes!” she replied, laughing at the same time.

“What’s wrong with pink?” I cut in without explaining that I won the bottle at a work raffle. “It is a symbol of love and compassion!”

The back-seat friends joined in the laughter. I had to roll down the two front windows to release the deafening cheer in the car!

“Oh, by the way,” I yelled. “Do you know what I use it for?

They became all ears.

“I use it as a urinal in case I get stuck in traffic!”

“OMG!” my front-seat friend shrieked, throwing the bottle on the leg room floor. The jaws in the back seat dropped.

I let out a guffaw, almost choking on my saliva.

Realizing the moment, the back-seat friends started to moan in disgust which heightened my hilarity.

I laughed so hard that it startled a woman who was walking her dog on the adjacent sidewalk.