Teach a Kid to Drive and Eliminate Colonoscopy Prep

Drama Deadly's First Accident

You know how washing a car brings a sudden end to a drought? I believe that a similar philosophy holds true with car insurance. Exactly a week and a half after making our car insurance policy a smidgen more affordable for our teenage daughter (Drama Deadly), I got the call that I had been dreading and halfway expecting.

“Mom, I got into an accident.”

Please note that the following account of yesterday's events is told from my point of view, that being the point of view from the unintelligent, uninformed parent. Some of you may know me. Perhaps you can even relate to being me. I represent clueless, annoying parents who have experienced nothing in this life besides sucking air and occupying space. Duh.

“Are you alright? Are you hurt?” I asked over my daughter's frantic babbling.

“I'm fine but my car I don't know what happened oh my god my car Dad's gonna kill do you think -”

“Okay, where are you?” I had to cut her off or I would have been drawing Social Security benefits before she finished the story. Once I got her location out of her, I headed that way.

The responding police officer had to relocate the vehicles involved in the accident, so we gathered in a parking lot, which I took as a good sign. At least Drama's car was drive-able. After looking my daughter over for injury, and finding none, I began my fact-finding mission.

“Tell me what happened,” I said, and hoped for a reasonable explanation.

“Something was wrong with the tire,” replied Drama.

“What do you mean?"

“It wouldn't stop.”

“What?”

“I had my foot on the brake, but I guess I wasn't pressing hard enough because the tire kept moving.”

At that moment it became crystal clear in my mind that the officer who rode with Drama during her driving test must have had his eyes closed, otherwise my child would not have a license. No other explanation made sense.

“I think what you mean is that your brain wasn't working right.”

A large black pickup truck pulled up and an also large, unhappy-looking man stepped out, folded his arms across his chest, struck a pose, and began to stare in our direction. In an attempt to keep things friendly-ish, I approached him and introduced myself as Drama Deadly's mother. My greeting was met with silence and more staring, so I came in from another angle.

“Are you okay?”

“Yep.”

“Good. Is anyone in your truck injured?”

“Nope.” He turned his head for a quick spit on the parking lot.

We stood in silence.

“Okay, then. Good talk.” I nodded and returned to Drama.

“Was that guy just sitting at the yield sign when you hit him?”

“Well...yeah.”

“Honey, were your eyes open while you were driving?” I thought I saw her think for a second before answering.

“Uh, yeah.”

“And what were they looking at when you ran into Mr. Happy's new truck?” To this child, multitasking means breathing with both eyes open.

“I don't know. I might have been looking at the traffic, I guess.”

“You don't know what you were doing when you rear-ended a truck?”