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.