Cars

GRAHAM*isms*

• Me:  “Graham, can you say car?”
• Graham:  “Cahh”

Earlier this week, I drove to a meeting that required me to use the highway. Let me note that I rarely have to get on the highway around here because 1- my office is very close to our house 2- I work from home whenever possible and 3- I use a car service to get to/from the airport so when the highway is required, I’m not usually the one driving.  While driving on the highway today for the first time in a long time, I felt like I was driving really, really fast.  I looked down at the speedometer and I wasn’t even driving the speed limit (60mph).  I laughed to myself.  Times have changed…or have they?

Those who know me really well know that I have a driving record for the ages.  An abysmal, embarrassing, ridiculous driving record that is absolute proof positive that the legal driving age should be extended.  I passed my driver’s test on the first try 2 weeks after my 16th birthday.  I botched the parallel park and forgot to check my blind spot before pulling into traffic.  I guess the short skirt really did do the trick.

1 week later I got pulled over for speeding on Hwy 73 in Plainfield.  He gave me a warning.  2 weeks after that, I was pulled over again.  This time in the big city of Stevens Point while driving my friend Cari’s pickup truck (yes, pickup truck).  I didn’t get off so easy that time and still remember the pit in my stomach at the thought of having to tell my parents I got a $75 ticket.  That was a feeling I got used to.

My parents gave me their 1980 Ford Pinto. Manual transmission.  Poop Brown.  I loved it.  My first “oops” happened on the way to volleyball practice. My Pepsi-Cola fell off of the center hump onto the floor and when I leaned down to pick it up, I pulled the steering wheel with me and drove straight into the ditch. I never took my foot off the gas so I gunned it out of the ditch and aside from losing my license plate in the process, otherwise kept the car in tact. I didn’t have to report that incident to my parents but I can’t remember how I explained the missing plate and grass sticking out of the hood.  A few weeks later, I put the car in a ditch again. This time it took a carful of vacationing Illinois boys who happened upon us to pick the car up and pull it out.  I remember being very happy that my car went in the ditch because the boys were cute.  I didn’t have to report that one either.

One month after that, I flipped that car a few times. Too much speed, bald tires and a County Road at night. The accident ended my volleyball season with a fractured back. My school assumed I had been drinking (absolutely not one drop). Angels surrounded the car that night and it was 8 months before I drove again.  I remember dropping a girlfriend off in my mom’s Taurus wagon after practice about a year later and coming across a family of skunks in the middle of the road.  I was so afraid, I slowed down to about 5 mph and ran them over.  My dad told me never to swerve if a deer crossed the road so I applied that advice to the skunks.  The car stunk for weeks.

I went without incident for a while but over the course of the next 15 years, I rear-ended 3 cars, T-boned a parked car while in reverse, backed out of the garage before the roof could clear the door, fell asleep at the wheel, hit a deer with a friend’s convertible (I didn’t swerve!) and backed, bumped, swiped and kissed numerous bumpers, doors and side mirrors.  None of this takes into account the speeding tickets (10-ish, maybe?) including one that landed me in the Milwaukee Country Jail for an entire day (my 2nd most embarrassing moment of all time that I will gladly share in person over a glass of wine).

My parents, and now us, have paid way too much money in insurance and premiums and at one point, our agent asked Mike why he even let me behind the wheel. 

What I wanted to blog, when I was thinking about how “fast” I felt on the highway was that I pray my kids don’t inherit my driving instincts and that before they turn 16 the government raises the legal driving age to 36. The good news is, when the kids get to an age where parents trade off carpooling, I can share a link to this blog post and outsource that duty for good. 

So Graham said “cahh” on command and I haven’t gotten a speeding ticket in years (yes, years!). 

Here’s some pics from this weekend.  Greyson’s 1st tee ball game was today (he’s enjoying it and picking it up quickly), we dyed Easter eggs tonight and Graham showed off a new dance that made him so dizzy he fell down.  I’m on a plane to the East Coast tomorrow; home on Wednesday and looking forward to Easter weekend with the boys. 

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