I feel like I've been living on borrowed time since I was about eighteen. Every time I get into a car I'm taking my life into my hands and it seems my oldest, Ennie, has taken up that mantle and run with it (driven with it?) She's been in two fender benders in the last month.
The first time the driver of a white van threw it in reverse and backed into her left front fender as they shared the turn lane. Then he just left.
The second time she was driving down a street where the cross roads have stop signs. However, some people seem to think a stop sign is more of a suggestion and some woman rolled right through the stop sign into my daughters right front fender. This time she was able to get insurance information and pictures. She also exclaimed her first foul declaration when she came through the door. I'm so proud.
Her recent course in crash reminds me of a time when I was about her age. I had an old Volkswagon Dasher as my first car. I'd never seen a V.W. Dasher before and haven't seen once since, but the Dasher was Volkswagon's answer to the station wagon. My brother rebuilt the engine and since it was the first engine he'd ever attempted, he had a handful of nuts and bolts left over. He hadn't started with extra nuts and bolts. It rattled loudly, lacked heat and air, and the radio had a dial. The antennae had been lost ages before so any station that could be found was impossible to hear through the static. I kept a tape player in the front seat. It was so sad.
Anyway, in the beginning months of my eighteenth year, I was rolling down a street in my neighborhood when some dingus in a van pulled over to the right and stopped. I waited a moment and when it was clear to me that he was stopped, I attempted to go around him. That's when he decided to take a wide turn to the left. He smashed my right fender. His wife vaulted from the passenger side screaming obscenities and all of a sudden my mom appeared! I was about four houses away from mine but she was there in a blink. She and my stepdad had been driving in front of the van. My mom sounded so worried when she told me she'd dropped her roast beef sandwich on the ground because of me. I always felt so important.
The next day, I was headed to a hair appointment when I rear ended a woman on the highway. It was rainy and the road was slick. My car hydroplaned into hers. I'll admit my actions after the fact were ill-advised.
I continued on to my hair appointment.
It was the days before cell phones, but my parents still managed to get a hold of me. The woman I hit had called the insurance company, who had called them. There really is no excuse for the way I handled it except, roast beef sandwich.
I was told I would no longer be allowed to drive because I had become a liability. This is where it gets stupid. See, my brother, who was seventeen at the time, was an even greater liability that me! He already had two speeding tickets under his belt. Also, he'd taken out a retaining wall in Hurst. And he'd driven away with the gas hose still in his car. And he was actually on his second car because he'd wrapped the first one around a sapling, but I was the liability.
I might still be bitter about that.
Anyway, it got worse from there as the next year, while riding home from a New Year's Eve party, we found ourselves watching in astonishment as the rear tire rolled up next to us and then passed us on the highway. A few days later, I was a passenger in a friends's car when we got t-boned as we turned left on a green arrow.
A few years later, I was leaving work one after noon in the right lane waiting to turn. There was a shopping center beside me and I inched up the lane as the cars would turn right and this little old lady hit my passenger side. She jumped out of the car screaming about how we youngsters were always speeding down the street. Luckily there was a cop nearby who could verify that I was, in fact, stopped when she hit me.
Then there was the time I was headed to a friend's house in my MommyMobile, a red minivan. This little old man backed out of his driveway as I passed behind him. He said he just didn't see me because he was looking at his grandson who was in the passenger seat beside him. Whatever.
But it all started when I was about eight. My mom was headed to the post office to get our mail. Our house was so rural the post office didn't even deliver. So my mom says she's going to get the mail and my brother and I jump in the passenger seat at the same time. Note, this is the same brother who rebuilt my car engine and also managed to not be a liability in spite of his shenanigans. He and I were wrestling over the front seat as she started the van and then headed down the gravel road. Apparently the door had not been closed well and with one hard shove I found myself hitting the ground and rolling into the ditch. My mom was at the end of the road before she realized I was gone and slammed on the brakes. She reversed back to where I landed and laughingly asked if I was okay.
I've never been as important as a roast beef sandwich.
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