CAR WRECKER
After 5 years of having three teenagers behind the wheel of a car, we finally got the call. C phoning to report her first car accident. This just shows that if a teenager drives to Value Village enough times (daily) they will eventually have a car accident (just ask the insurance company). C’s accident was no big deal, just a fender bender in the parking lot (except for the fact that our car is ten feet wide and built like an armoured vehicle and the other car was apparently made of tissue paper).
I was quick to let her know that it had happened to me too. Then, as we were paying out of pocket for the damages, I took a moment to retroactively acknowledge my parents. Because it also "happened to me" MANY times. Looking back, I can honestly say that I may have (read: ‘absolutely’) brought about the replacement of every single panel of our family’s second car.
In order of events:
1) Within months of purchase I got sandwiched between two cabs in front of my school - in full view of about a hundred of my peers. The good news is that I was neither the front nor back car, and the cabs had great insurance coverage, so I came out looking faultless. But I can assure you that: A) I was definitely not faultless. The chances of me being distracted by my “2Kool for Schul” mix tape and not prepared to stop in time at the cross walk were somewhere between 99.9-100%, and B) I lived about six blocks from school and had no business driving there in the first place. But teen, and therefore = lazy. Either way, I learned that a Honda Accord doesn't stand a chance in a full nelson between two circa 1980 city cabs. It crumbled like an accordion (perhaps the inspiration for its brand name?). Queue replacement of all front and back panels.
2) My brain has boycotted the use my left eye due to a stigmatism (which tons of people have - so, what the hell, Brain?). I therefore have poor depth perception. As with everything in life (if you are me), I had to learn the hard way that this “seeing difference” meant that I can’t gauge the how far away oncoming cars are. As a result, I turned left on a complicated street, crossing two lanes of street car tracks and then two lanes of one coming traffic…and didn’t quite make it. I got T-boned. 100% my bad. Again other car = 100% fine. Accord? Newly un-accordianed (shockingly, not a legit word) passenger door panels have to be replaced. This time on my parents dime. (Life long sideeffect of this event is that I will travel any number of blocks to find a traffic light in lieu of making a left turn through traffic, and I can’t pass even a Mennonite carriage on a two lane highway without a passing lane.)
3) At the our city’s MLB home opener, a buddy got SUPER wasted (as one does at baseball home openers - or any baseball game for that matter - how else to entertain oneself for 7 hours?). On the way to the car, he notices a noose hanging from the rear view mirror of this chick’s car. He decides it would be a really fun idea to spew drunken commentary about it. Not only does this not go over well with the Noose girl, it went over even less well with the gang of motorcycle dudes she was with (or, in retrospect, it went over perfectly - because they were more than ready to beat the crap out of a bunch of snotty kids). We high tail it to the car, jump in and take off…directly into bumper to bumper deadlocked traffic. The Noose Posse proceeds to kick the shit out of the car and pound on the windows while approximately 25,000 pedestrians provide a perfect case study in crowd mentality. Eventually safely home, we all pile out of the car and go inside all a-twitter in a post hysterics high. We don’t know about the damage to the car until my parents come home and ask “why are there boot shaped indentations all over the car”? My parents thought it was pretty funny. But maybe that came with later - because at the time we suction boot prints off all four doors.
4) Driving home late one night on a country road late one night, I was following our friend R. R was a notoriously fast driver, and was also coming off the late shift of his job as delivery person for Pizza Pizza. This was back in the “30min or free” days (code for: driver has to pay for the late pizza fro their wages) - so R was in full race car mode. I am keeping pace, not fully cognizant of how fast we are going until I spin out on black ice (and R disappears into the night). I have landed HARD against a ten foot snow bank that is hard as rock. Two things I remember about this night is that the owners of the roadside general store came out at 1am to yell at me about hitting their sandwich board sign. (Given that, the was fine, and I could just as easily have gone right through the front of their house, I can still get irritated by this). 2) I had to wake my parents up at 2am to tell them that the car wrecker had stuck again. This time we had to replace all the panels on the driver’s side.
5) Since at this point the car is a total piece of s—t, I took it to university with me. One day, while I am at class a big storm rolls through. When I return home, I fimd that a massive tree branch has fallen on the car. I can clearly remember thinking “Are you f-ing kidding me?”. Fixing it would have necessitated replacing the hood, roof and trunk. My parents and I all simultaneously cried “Uncle” on my car career once and for all.
A grand total of 17 car panel destructions later...
So, when C’s accident resulted in the replacement of a new Izuzu (guessing) door panel and a $5 bumper piece for our bulk child mover ... I was all good!
An easy ‘chill parent’ opportunity if ever there was one.