Episode 2

THE CRASH:

A short story about a squirrel, a car, a tree, and one version of events.   

Let me set the scene. 

It was a beautiful, crisp spring day and I was about nine months into having my license. In other words as a high school student with a car I felt invincible. There’s something about being sixteen with your first car riding around your neighborhood. 

We all remember that feeling. In fact I'm sure you can all remember the smell, the sun hitting the dashboard, and music playing on the radio, those were the true glory days! (Heavy sigh)

Anyways…

I was at my younger brother’s sporting event with my dad. My younger brother was about 10 years old at the time, so the sporting event wasn’t exactly entertaining. Let’s just say I wasn’t watching Lebron James play basketball. In fact, it was the first time I felt watching paint dry would be better than watching this. As we all know, we pretend to be engaged and excited for youth sports. 

I had been watching for what felt like four hours (seven minutes in reality) and decided I’d leave to go see my new girlfriend. 

So, I did what any teenage boy would do and lied to my dad. 

“I’m going to get food, I'll be back," I said. 

“Sounds good” was my dad’s response. A man of many words.  

Unlike me, he was locked into the game letting the referees know after every call that they were, in fact, wrong. Let’s just say he had a reputation for getting kicked out of games but that’s his story, let’s get back to mine. 

As I'm sure you are aware, I didn’t go and get food, I drove my brand new car to my girlfriend's house. 

We had a great time. No further questions!

After about 30 minutes with her, I realized I should probably get back to my dad as he was wondering where the hell I went to get food or maybe in typical dad fashion he wasn’t. Either way, it was time to get back. 

I pulled out of her driveway and started to make my way back to the event. I had one hand on the wheel and the other hand on my phone, or as we all know this as “The stupidest and biggest no-no technique.” I didn’t have a defense for why I drove like this. I spent hours in drivers ed learning the proper technique of  10 and 2,  or something like that. 

But honestly, my way felt cooler. 

After about ten seconds I looked up from my phone and bang. I woke up head buzzing, the smell of the deployed airbag, beeping sounds, and ears ringing.

Yes. You guessed it. I had run my new car into a tree. In my defense, the girlfriend who I had just left texted me and I needed to respond. 

Luckily, I was okay and the only thing that hurt was my ego. I thought, of course this is karma for leaving the event. I stumbled out of the car and called my father. 

I instantly thought of three scenarios - (1) tell the truth, (2) lie, and (3) lie 

So I called him and lied. 

“Dad, I crashed the car. I hit a tree going 20 miles per hour. I think it might be totaled.  A damn squirrel was on the road and I swerved out of the way to avoid it.” 

His response: 

“I thought you were getting food?”

In that moment, for those of you who are keeping track, I had now lied twice, was selfish and left my brother's sporting event, and totaled my new car. 

After explaining to my father where I actually was, he showed up in about five minutes.

Yup, my girlfriend lived that close to the event. It was truly a “When it rains it pours” moment. 

To add salt to my wounds, my girlfriend's father was walking his dog and had come across the crash site. He saw me, the totaled car wrapped around the neighbor's tree, and said these exact words,

“Good thing the neighbors are away on vacation.” Clearly, he was concerned about my well being. 

Now, young teenagers are afraid of a few things throughout their high school years: disappointing your parents, the school principal, and girlfriends' fathers. 

I had captured two of those feelings in one afternoon. 

Once my father showed up, I explained that the squirrel ran across the road and I moved out of the way to not hit it. I think I was so dazed and confused from the crash that I actually thought he’d believe this. 

We made our way back home, to where this got rehashed over the dinner table. Naturally, I was grounded (not like I had a car to go anywhere). 

Days went by and embarrassment faded. About a week later, my mom picked me up from school and my father called while we were on the way home. 

She answered on speaker phone and he said, “Honey, I got in a fender bender can you come pick me up?”

She responded “Of course, where are you? What happened?”

He replied “There was a damn squirrel on the road and I crashed the car!” 

Nobody Asked. Now you know anyway.