>Wrecked
>Several months ago, my oldest stepdaughter wrecked the car. She wasn’t hurt, but the incident was traumatic for several reasons, the chief being that on that one specific day, she not driving her car. She was driving our car.
Adding insult to non-injury, she wrecked while driving in a parking deck with two of her girlfriends. Yes, she wrecked our car in a parking deck. From the looks of things, she rammed a concrete pole. Hard. How does one ram anything hard in a parking deck? I’m afraid it’s destined to be one of those teenage mysteries that I can’t understand.
Although our Buick now classifies as a bona fide Hooptie, what with the enormous dent in the side of it, it is still drivable, and so, reluctantly, we’ve put off making the thousand-dollar repair on the car in favor of, oh, eating. That and buying new laptops we don’t need.
I try to avoid driving the Buick whenever I can because frankly, I don’t like the looks I get when I’m in it. I’ll be casually sitting in traffic when I catch another driver staring at me. I smile vaguely and toss my hair as if I hadn’t noticed my autoadmirer, but then his eyes slide down to the huge dent and back up to me, a sneer fixed firmly on his face. Better stay away from her, I can see him thinking. Crazy woman driver.
I don’t appreciate being unjustly criticized for something I didn’t do, but I’m willing to bet you’re prejudiced against the dented and the dinged as well. Oh, you think we’d be friends when you read my blog, but if you saw me on the interstate in my banged-up Buick, you’d be thinking something more like, What the hell kind of skank drives around in a jalopy like that? I’ll bet she doesn’t even have insurance. I’ll bet she can’t even READ.
With that in mind, I’ve thought of putting a sign in the window that says, MY STEPDAUGHTER IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS DENT. I WASN’T EVEN IN THE CAR WHEN IT HAPPENED. This would prove not only that I didn’t wreck the car, but also that I can read and write. Somehow, it seems lame, though, and desperate.
And so instead, I tootle dejectedly around town in my trashtastic clunker, wondering how I can complete the image others undoubtedly now have of me. Should I wear short shorts and stop at McDonalds for a Large Extra Value Meal and then chomp on it while seated on my hood? Should I blast Eminem and drive with my seat extended back as far as it will go and one arm casually flung over the steering wheel? Should I black out one of my teeth with a Sharpie? Decisions, decisions.
My new public image comes in handy in just one circumstance, and that’s when somebody cuts me off in traffic. Usually, I just fume and steam and let the puff-headed Suburban driver force her way in front of me, only because I don’t want to crash my car over assholery. Now, though, I have no such worries.
First, I honk my horn impatiently, leading the puffhead to peer curiously back at me in her sideview mirror. God is usually on my side in these matters, because almost always at that point, the clouds part and a ray of sunlight shines down, spotlighting my Buick’s mangled front end. I just love watching the look on that hair-frosted horror’s face change from glee and defiance to abject horror. Yeah, bitch, I think. You’ve tangled with the wrong housewife. Her glance meets mine and I roll my eyes and leer like I’ve just been released from the Milton Carbuncle Hospital for Extremely Dangerous Nutcases. I gun the engine and lurch forward, stopping just inches away from Bitch’s bumper. Then I laugh evilly and start turning my steering wheel like it might open a giant safe. That’s when my little roadpal gives up the game. Sweating profusely, she drives her Suburban up onto the sidewalk, passing ten cars and grazing a street sign before bumping back down onto a cross street and screeching away. I see the lights begin to flash on a patrol car in a nearby parking lot and I laugh, rubbing my hands with glee. Mission accomplished!
Sure, I’ve taken my Buick and made lemonade out of a lemon, but I’m still hoping we can raise enough funds soon to get that dent banged out once and for all. Truthfully, the whole thing leaves me feel like a bit of a nervous wreck.
You can’t tell, can you?
>I definitely vote for the blacked-out teeth. You’ll be awesome 🙂
>what the hell is a “parking deck”? was she on a ferry?You need to pain an number on the side and hang some mesh in the window.
>”pain an number”.kee-rist, it’s too early in the morning to be drinking.
>Ahh.. we also have such a vehicle. It is our family car. It was made in the mid 1990’s. It is missing some paint, and it has large cracks in what used to be the leather seats. But it is paid for. It gets decent gas mileage. Phrases such as “Oh no! That spilled on the leather seats!”, “Don’t put too many miles on it”, “Park way over there so the paint won’t get scratched”, “Don’t run over that curb!”, “Pay extra for the car wash” are not in our vocabulary.
>I can so relate except it was ME who bashed in the side of my minivan in our church parking structure last summer (I took a tight corner too closely-crunch). We couldn’t afford to fix it or pay the deductible to have the insurance fix it so I’ve been driving it around…I live in a wealthy area and oh the judgement I feel…I just kept telling myself “At least my car is paid for”-it’s 9 years old and we can’t afford a new car payment.
>You are not alone in the hooptie car shame. My 1997 Astro Van is missing the ‘decorative’ panel on the sliding door after a road gator (tire tread remains) ripped it off. I just can’t justify hundreds of dollars of repair work for a non-essential part. The thing still gets 20+ mpg and has been paid for for years, so until it dies, I will swallow my shame. Oh, and my other paid off 40mpg(!!) car is a 1997 Saturn that looks great. Sunroof, leather, etc. But the right window and the sunroof have burnt up motors and you can’t let it sit unused for more that 12 hours or the battery runs down. 🙂 We are SO classy when we go to Green Hills Mall. No one parks beside us!
>Gotta love the hooptie.So if your car looks like a hooptie, what does your step-daughter’s car look like?
>I would definitely change lanes if I saw that dent. Forgive me?
>HER car looks like a pristine black Volvo with a sunroof and leather seats that used to belong to a doctor (which we found for $5,000- a near miracle- and split the cost with her mom). That’s what HER car looks like. But that is another story for another time.
>You mean you haven’t emptied your stepdaughter’s piggy bank and/or put her to work to help pay for some of that damage ? Sure it was an “accident” but, I’m just sayin’
>You’re too nice! Me? I’d be driving HER car and she’d be driving the car she cracked up!
>Yeah, can’t you drive the Volvo and make your stepdaughter drive the hoopty??
>People, people. You act as if I hadn’t thought of such things myself. :)The Buick, hooptie that it is, seats all six of us in a pinch and is worth twice what the Volvo is worth. Therefore if she totals that car, we’re in trouble. If she totals the Volvo, as pretty as it is, it’s the least expensive car to replace.As for paying us back, she has accrued something like 76 hours in free babysitting now, which is tallied weekly on the family calendar. So she is paying the price. Sloowwwwly. Yet so am I. That’s the part of being a parent that sort of sucks.
>actually for me parking decks are the most likely spot for an accident to occur – or they WERE when I first start driving. in the first year i put huge gashes and scrapes into my family’s 1990 volvo, which had until then, remained pristine (yes, we were a no eating in the car type of family)It takes skill or practice to be able to gauge those tight turns next to the huge concrete poles that litter those places, and since I didn’t have skill, practice took its time.
>I hope getting a summer job to pay you back for the repairs is on her list of things to do!
>Well, don’t worry about the hooptie, if it is paid for who cares in this economy! I recently had to buy another car because my precious 1994 honda civic died…:( She just went clunk and broke a bolt. No dents yet because the kids are not driving yet, though that is right around the corner. My other car is a 1990 Mazda 626, great gas mileage because it has not heat or AC but the windows and radio work really well. I feel like classic white trash when the Hubs wants to take his car out because he says my driving scares him. HAHAHAHA
>Oh, wow! I remember how much trouble I was in when I got my first speeding ticket – I cannot even imagine the punishment for denting my parents’ car! 🙂 Beckyhttp://www.stinkylemsky.typepad.com/
>free baby sitting should be a given…she should have to get a summer job and pay for the damage, after al you do her laundry for free, feed her for free,so she should actually have to help pay in real cash, that hurts !
>free baby sitting should be a given…she should have to get a summer job and pay for the damage, after al you do her laundry for free, feed her for free,so she should actually have to help pay in real cash, that hurts !
>My 1995 Nissan Quest minivan recently lost a front hubcap. It really completes the look of the car.What’s the point in replacing it really?
>LMAO your too funny in your delivery. You make me laugh way too hard!
>Forget fixing the dent! Just have some hydraulics installed!
>People, people. You act as if I hadn’t thought of such things myself. :)The Buick, hooptie that it is, seats all six of us in a pinch and is worth twice what the Volvo is worth. Therefore if she totals that car, we’re in trouble. If she totals the Volvo, as pretty as it is, it’s the least expensive car to replace.As for paying us back, she has accrued something like 76 hours in free babysitting now, which is tallied weekly on the family calendar. So she is paying the price. Sloowwwwly. Yet so am I. That’s the part of being a parent that sort of sucks.
>Pls. describe the dents on your stepdaughter.
>Hey people. don’t be too hard on 17 – free baby-sitting isn’t nothing, and she is a new driver – if she’s making an effort that should count for something. I probably would say something like “no friends in the car if you can’t concentrate well enough” if I felt like the babysitting wasn’t enough. Anyway, if she were to get $10 an hour for babysitting (I know, I know, we all made less, but that’s what alot of people go for these days, and Lindsay knows she can trust her with the kids, you can’t always get that in a babysitter) then she’d already be at like $760 by now. As long as she’s repentant. And a more careful driver.
>1. Happy belated birthday. You and your children are adorable.2. I’m totally prejudice when I see banged up cars, except I ALWAYS assumed that the driver got screwed by someone without insurance. Perhaps because that happened to me.
>I hit a concrete pillar in a parking garage at the mall once. I’d like to say I was a teen but I was actually 27. (I still went in and got my velor JLo sweat suit anyway. I needed retail therapy after the crash.)And I looked damn good driving in my messed up ride afterwards. Kimmy from the block!
>You’re discovering the beauty of driving a junker car. People will ALWAYS get out of your way because their car is nicer than yours, so they’ve got more to lose if you smash up. Because of my ’94 beat up Dodge Caravan, I usually always win in the battle of the lane changes.
>Blacked-out teeth, I’d vote for that!Loved your story, but there were three scary woman drivers: one rammed a Buick in a parking deck, one fumes and steams at puff-headed Suburban drivers, and the third was said puff-headed Suburban driver (fume-ee and steam-ee). Darn. Wish you’d cast that last one as a man!
>Sorry. I can’t “cast” anyone as the opposite sex in this post because surprising as it seems sometimes, this blog isn’t a work of fiction. 🙂
>Easy step: put a bumper sticker on the back. Says “Caution: teen drivers in family”That’s one other parents will understand instantly, and you’re off the hook 😉
>Yeah, I’m driving around in an Envoy with a smashed back end…thanks to three cars full of teenage girls who started a chain reaction and ended up ramming ME, the only adult minding her own business and STOPPED at the red light. What was I thinking??
>I, too, have been driving a car that would make me want to switch lanes if I ran into it in a dark alley… but she’s just been dropped off for repairs – time to break the bank!!I second the “Caution: Teen Drivers” sign.
>I drive a Ford F150, and when people cut me off, the second they see that it’s a WOMAN driving the truck, they get that same look of horror. As though I’m just hormonal enough to smash their little hybrid to bits with my gas-pig of a pickup.
>Ha ha very funny, I know the feeling indeed!! I woke up one morning to find my car in a poor state with the wing mirror hanging off!! (some lorry or vandal!) I was so very tempted to put a huge sign up saying “it wasn’t me!”
>I’m cackling right now, remembering my own crappy cars — including the $500 clunker we bought (yeah, that was the price for the WHOLE CAR) one year in Rochester, NY. The driver’s side door quit opening unless you manfully wrenched it open (I wasn’t strong enough), and my husband always kept his golf clubs in the car’s passenger seat since the trunk was so tiny, we had noooo storage space in our apartment, and it was convenient for him. So whenever I had to borrow his car (such as when my heater died one winter), I had to open the front passenger door, pull out his clubs, climb in over the stick shift, pull the stuffed-full golf bag in after me, and then shut the door. Reverse when I got to the office. I don’t recall why I never beat him or the car to death with those golf clubs.GOOD times! (The car lasted a total of three months. Thank god.)
>I think you should get the bumper sticker I saw last weekend- Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It
>Okay, loving the puff-headed Suburban driver fantasy! Makes it all worth it. And I’m thinking the step-daughter needs to relinquish her un-hooptified vehicle to you. Unless of course it’s a piece. Ahhh, motherhood…
>I wouldn’t worry about what other people are thinking, after all it’s only other shallow/insecure people who are judging you.
>I stumbled across your blog, and I just wanted to say that while I enjoyed it very much ( very funny) I’m a stepdaughter too. I hate it. The “step” always makes me feel like I’m ALMOST good enough to be part of the family, but not quite.