Joy Ride

When I was 16, I could NOT wait to get my driver's license. I was born in July so all of my friends were older and had their licenses before me. When I got my permit, my father took me to school parking lots and side roads to teach me to drive. I remember ( very vividly) driving down a side street by my house and freaking out because I swore I was going to hit all of the cars parked on the street. My dad told me repeatedly that I was nowhere near them and I was fine. He was right but when you don't know how to drive you seem to think that a car that is 6 feet away is in danger of getting struck by a paranoid 16 year old who is a bit of a klutz.

Somewhere between 'fear of parked cars' and 'I hate my teenagehood because I am the only one of my friends who can't drive', I decided one day that I was a superhero. No one was home and my older sister's cool red Firebird was in the driveway and the keys were in the house. So what any teenage girl ( who never really got in any trouble or did anything bad..for real) would do would be to the grab the keys, put on my superhero cape ( not really) and go for a ride around the block. So still permitless and a parked car fearing girl, I got in the car and went for a ride. A ride around the block somehow led out to a main road. I did fine. Well, I did fine until I was making a left turn ( about 2 minutes from home) and a big , long guardrail jumped out into the middle of the road in a fierce rage and slammed into the car. I did what any superhero would do. I shit myself (again, not really but close) drove home and let out a HUGE sigh of relief that there was still no one home.

I started to pull in the driveway and I couldn't get the car to go in. Every time I tried the car was going on the grass. I couldn't figure out how to pull straight in. I can drive on main roads now, with MOVING cars ( which were much less scary than those parked ones), I can break free from evil demonic guardrails but I can not get the car in the damn driveway. I am now freaking out because I am soooo screwed. I called my friend, we will call her Chrissy ( because that's her name) and told her little ' licensed' self to get over to my house right away because I had an emergency. She lived about 10 minutes away by car so now I am sitting there worrying that I am still going to get caught because the car is NOT where it was left and guardrails' venom has left it's mark on the poor shiny red Firebird. She got there , she got the car in the driveway and no one EVER knew.

Somehow no one noticed right away and when my sister did notice she thought it happened somewhere else. No one would have ever thought I would have done it because I was a good girl :) What amazes me is that I didn't tell on myself. I was a good kid, not perfect but I wasn't out of control . I played by most of the rules. I got away with it!!!

I did tell them years later that I did it ...but I don't think the damage to the car was as bad as my memory thinks because while I got the "OMG you did?" it wasn't that big a deal and I haven't heard about it everyday of my life since then. Although, I never brought it up again either. It was fun being a superhero for a day.. but next time it will be for different reasons!