Kids, Cars, and Busted!

Kids, Cars, and Busted.

A bit of an explanation as to the cast in the post.

Thing 1 is the oldest son

Thing 2 is oldest the Daughter

Thing 3 is a Daughter

Thing 4 is a Daughter

Thing 5 is a Son

Thing 6 is a Son

Every kid dreams about the day they get to sixteen and take that driver test. Every parent has mixed emotions each and every time it happens. When it happened for me I thought I was free but that is another story for another time. You sweat bricks with the first one and think it will kill you yet. Then you realize it is going to be that way with pretty much all of them.  You always hope that everything you teach them will keep the car up right and as few of dents in it as can be expected. So ya teach them driving on dirt, ice, snow, etc the whole time grabbing the seat and clawing the dash board. Ya pray that if things aren’t the best that they call you to bring it home on a trailer in at least one or as few of pieces as possible. Well at least there is hope!

Well we can start with Kid/thing 1. Thing 1 spends the afternoon working on the car, changing the oil, lube job etc. Snap decision to warm it up to check the Trans fluid and out on the road it goes. A mile or so to warm it up and he should be good. The quicker you can get it to the warm side the better. Right? Yeppers when you’re warmed up and pulling in the yard ya bring a visitor with ya. Yeppers a car with added disco lighting. Ya find things going from bad to worse when Mama comes out of the house. She tells the visitor that when he is done with the formalities that the permit is now hers. She tells thing 1 as she is returning “you’re so busted mister!” Not the greatest situations for thing 1 considering me and the local judge have been on a good first name basis for years. I told my judge friend not to throw the book at him but give him the book case full all at the same time and he smiled. Thing 1 had some other driving experiences and encounters with the law over the next couple of years. Once in a ditch but he called his uncle Wheel’n Roland to help him dig out that time. A few years past and we were sitting in church and he happens to see the visitor of years previous and says that is the cop that gave me the reminder once. Yeppers I tell him that’s our church home teacher and friend. The look on his face was priceless!

Well jumping ahead about six to seven years by now. We come to an occurrence with Thing 5. We had thins going on that day and Thing 4 had to go to the swimming pool after school. So after an appointment in town with Thing 5 we drop of the Beast (suburban) at the school. Thing 5 is to give the keys for the Beast to Thing 4 at lunch break. So we (my great wife and I) go home thinking all is well and I can get some rest before work that night. About an hour or so passes and there are calls coming in to our home phone and cell phones from the school. On the way to the school we are thinking of what will happen to this situation. We get to the office and are kindly escorted in to a conference room by the principal and the resource officer. There sits Thing 5 looking as worried as cat about to fall out of a tree into a pond. Thing 4 shows up at about that time with stress written on her face like she had been watching a bad movie and eating burnt potato chips. Thing 4 has the keys to the Beast at this point and hands them over to me and goes back to class. Well it seems Thing 5 had gone wild in a parking lot close to the school with some others in the Beast with him. He had gone fast enough in turns to slip the tires hard enough that one had removed it’s self from the rim. Then driving a crossed some lawn. After the ride Thing 5 gave the keys to Thing 4 telling her "there seems to be a flat tire". Finish the stuff with the school and officer. Thing 5 suspended for a few days and a ticket to boot. We look at the Beast and sure enough there is a flat tire. Thing 5 gets a crash course in tire care and changing. Off to the tire shop to see what kind of damage repair we were into now. So the friend at the shop looks at the tire and the rim and pulls me aside. He tells me the tire and rim are ok and we should be good but if I want to play it on the kid he’s game. About this time Thing 5 is sweating a semi-load of bricks and thinking he will be working the rest of his life to get out of this one. A few weeks pass and we go with him to see the Juvie PO about the next steps with the ticket. His mama is on this one and she expects him to pay up big with this. Lesson learned so far!

We skip back to Thing 4 and parking a car in to a bumper of her own small ride. Thing 4 kept me hopping with dead batteries, flat tires, and a missing key once.

Thing 3 had a scrap with the trash can and the back of the house. Had a car back in to the car while it was parked. But for the most part if it would run she fixed it (I didn’t help much). She did get pulled over once because she didn’t look old enough to be driving. The officer asked why she was driving and not Thing 2 that looked a bit older. She just told him she had been driving longer.

Thing 6 had some things happen with low oil and then a quart or five too many. Telling me the car is too hot. And well half cow tip’n Thing 3’s car in to a fence post and ditch on a gravel road. Leaving a good mark on the car, flat tire, and broken rear axle. Just glad it wasn’t with me in it. I can only imagine what it could have been. It must have been an interesting conversation with Thing 6 and Thing 3.

Thing 2 still has the ultimate clean driving record. Still has yet to scratch, dent, or ding a car or truck owned by me. She is an insurance agent’s worst client as they would not make any fee.

There have been some other stories also but they will need to be embellished more by themselves. So if you have kids and cars you know many stories. If you have little kids i recommend life insurance and lots of Rolaids.

Closing Doors and Windows in Life.

Closing doors and windows in life.

 We often close doors in our life because something happens and we think that by closing off others from us we free us from pain. We close doors on one person but unintended we close windows on many others at the same time. It is in frustration, anger, jealousy, puffed up pride, and among others. We think that it is only the doors that we close that will just hurt or effect one or two. That in some cases could very well be but there are always windows involved. Do we think of the windows when we close the doors? Not very often. I write about doors and windows because it seems to fit the situation. Doors are those people that shut others out because they may feel the situation they are in has left them no choice. So they close the door on the people in their lives that that probably need to keep closer than ever in their lives. Really this is about the windows that get closed and sometimes cracked and broken. Why is that and who are these windows? These are the spouses, children, close friends, grandparents, siblings, parents, and many others.

 How does this happen? Think if two siblings have a friction occurrences and the door between them gets closed. They are the doors in this picture. The windows that close because of the two doors can change how they feel about those directly connected to the doors. This can pit in-laws vs. in-laws, cousins vs. cousins, and spread from generation to generation. This thing has created canyons between nations and wars. I have seen situations with families that they become so divided that they can’t recall why they are separated in the first place. Think of it two cousins that are close friends and their parents that are siblings at odds. Think how far it can and does spread. I see people close doors and windows in situations in work environments, social media, church, political partisan and more. And over the things that mean really nothing when you look at the years they may have known each other.

 I heard it put once “If you’re going to burn a bridge look at the size of the river should you choose to cross back and need that bridge again.” Not that we should close doors and burn bridges each and every day. But consider what it may take to rebuild that bridge or forge that river at some point. Consider also when you burn a bridge the sparks may often find their way to the trees around them. Those trees are what we may need to rebuild the bridges. So to say the windows and the trees are some in the same. So say you drop a group of people from a list on social media in a rage of anger and or frustration.  Or someone lashes out in comments at someone that the things they post are wrong because it shows people doing something that they feel strongly are against them. When in reality maybe they where wronged by one person in their life and they choose to generalize that all the people that look like them are a problem also. Thus also pushing others out of the windows in their life and closing them out. You may very well get a few added back in there without a lot of hassle but many of them will be much harder to coax back. Some may never come back. Some of those persons may never open it up for us to be back on their list because we have darkened their trust of us.

 So you look at the doors in our lives and are we closing them hastily or do we think about the windows that we may crack and shatter as we close them. Do we honestly really know the windows we have closed and changed? If you have closed those doors do you simply just open them and go on as if nothing has happened?  Not very likely. But changing the course of things can be done. Two words can start it “I’m Sorry!” Maybe the hardest of any problem is to admit that we made a mistake. Swallowing pride is rather tough when there is some fowl to eat in doing so. I would suggest some catsup to maybe make it easier. By catsup I mean prayer. Asking Gods help in rebuilding things is a great way to start. Otherwise you will need a lot more than some special sauce to eat that Crow. Doors and windows should only be closed to keep the hot or cold weather out. Placing forgiveness on the table of life for those that are needing it in our lives without conditions can free us to move forward. Even if we feel that they may not fully deserve it either. Whether that forgiveness is accepted doesn’t matter. What matters is that we do it.