Walking out to the car from the grocery store with three kids in tow, I grimaced at the sight of my dirty SUV.
“Uggh! Kyle. When we get home you need to wash my car.”
My son smiled and nodded his head amiably. As we pulled up to the house Kyle noticed my parents’ car parked in the driveway –a temporary resting stop while they vacationed in Cancun. It needed to be moved if he was to hose down my car.
“Hey mom, I’ll wash your car if you let me pull out Mimi and Poppa’s car from the driveway and park it in the street.”
I looked at my son, on the cusp of high school and now suddenly interested in cars and rims and all sorts of manly automobile trivia and chuckled, wrinkling my nose. “No way, my parents would kill me if I let my kid crash their car.”
But the look on his face was pure yearning –a strong desire to grow up, experience life and to feel the roar of an engine under his feet. How could I say no? (Here is where my husband later injects –“What the howdy-doody were you thinking?”)
“How about I move my parent’s car and let you maneuver my car into the driveway?”
Kyle’s eyes rapidly blinked. “Umm sure, I’m cool with that.”
I quickly moved my parent’s vehicle out onto the street and then threw Kyle the keys to my car, motioning him to roll down the window so I could direct him.
Kyle moved the seat to make room for his long legs, adjusted the mirror and then gave me the thumbs up sign.
“Ok, pull it out in reverse and turn the wheel to the left to swing out into the street,” I instructed.
Kyle put my charcoal grey Nissan in reverse and then before I could yell, “NOOOOOOOO!” gunned the car backwards across the street. Just as he hit the curb, he braked and his head lurched forward as he pulled to a stop.
“Wow!’ he yelled. “The gas is pretty sensitive. “
Then he hit the pedal again, still in reverse and jumped the curb. The bumper grazed our neighbor’s tree as the car stopped violently.
“Oops mom, I forgot to put it back in drive,” he yelled in chagrin as I doubled over laughing until the tears ran down my legs.
Kyle shifted into drive, hit the gas and shot toward our long driveway. The right tire clipped the curb and whizzed past the mailbox by an inch as Kyle headed straight towards the garage door at forty miles an hour.
The worst possible scenario flashed through my mind. I imagined Kyle crashing into the garage door and t-boning the Cadillac parked just inside. There would be airbags and blood and worst of all –some serious explaining to do when daddy got home from work.
“Jesus stop him!” I screamed with horror.
Kyle – eyes wide with terror looked over at me.
“Hit the brake.” I yelled.
All of sudden the car jerked to a stop. Kyle threw it in park and climbed out gingerly. The car rested a mere millimeter of an inch from the garage door –about the length of a fingernail or a lady bug.
“Mom, that wasn’t like my video games at all, we might need to practice some more,” Kyle weakly grinned.
I collapsed in a heap –alternating between laughing and yelling, rolling on the grass in a gasping and convulsing dance of gratitude and frustration only a parent of a teen can fully appreciate.
Next time –we are practicing driving in a parking lot in the middle of the desert with no one to hit but a cactus.
