Well, well, well, Sally. I can't believe the audacity. Should we recount all of the times you wrecked Christine (same car) or perhaps the red pickup? Ok, I think we will. For the sake of the class, we will, from this point, refer to Sally as Phaethon.
#1: First day of school. Phaethon 14 (bad driver), Sarah 13 (young and innocent and-soon-to-be terrified). It was a very exciting day and, in fact, I'm almost positive there's a picture of us in our first-day-of-school dresses (yes, we wore dresses for the first day of school) in front of our fairly unblemished cadillac (shortlived, of course). There are five miles of gravel roads between our house and our bus stop and you will soon find out that nearly every one of these miles has experienced a wreck at the hands of Phaethon the marauder of fences and occupant of ditches. This was the first time our parents had let Phaethon drive the caddi and she was very excited. Too excited. She hit the corner by our mailbox, which is about a 90, at, hmmm, 40 miles per hour, hit loose gravel, made some pretty distinct tracks for awhile, then corked us in the ditch. No fence marauding this time.
#2: The fence marauding begins. Phaethon, me and Jordan, the neighbor boy in the back seat and, of course, Christine. We were driving to school that day, not riding the bus. Now, I don't know if any of you have had to drive on 23 miles of gravel roads every day to make it to school, but we have. There are these things called "pot holes". Pot holes=Phaethon's enemy. We had made it about three miles. A pot hole loomed ahead and I was certain that Phaethon would dodge but, alas, she did not. I think, at one point we were completely sideways skidding down the road--it was very much like the power slides people try to make their cars perform but it wasn't intentional. Then out of sideways skid, through the fence, into the freshly worked field. Oh, and it had rained the night before so the field was VERY muddy. Somehow Christine managed to work her way out of it though and we didn't get stuck. I had to get out and open the gate while Phaethon sat there with an astonished look. I grew about three inches with all the mud stuck to the bottom of my shoes. So, through the fence, into the field, back out through the gate and we had completely forgotten about poor Jordan in the back. We turned around and looked at him and he was frozen with a half-petrified, half-awed look on his face. Phaethon threatened him: "Don't tell anyone or I'll be in so much trouble." He nodded. Phaethon can be very intimidating.
#3: Can Phaethon find a hole the size of a 1990 Caddilac? Yes she can. We were driving away from Winifred this time and it was snowing like crazy. It was New Year's Eve and we were missing a huge party because we were in basketball so, blah. Rounding a corner, or trying to round a corner, Phaethon lost control of the chariot and we slid into a fairly unobtrusive ditch. Since she was very familiar with ditches in general, she wasn't phased in the least. Pulling out of her minor plunder, she headed for the road but Damn!! A coulvert hole...foiled again. She corked Christine in that coulvert hole like the thing had been dug especially for our car. Phaethon was freaking out and I, younger but very used to being the passenger in such situations, was pretty calm. We opened the trunk and put to use our "just in case you crash and it's cold outside" kit (good thing our parents anticipated Phaethon's driving ability). We walked to the nearest neighbors, Jack and Lorainne Bergum, and knocked at their door (at 2:00 in the morning). They took us in and fed us hot chocolate and cookies until we could contact our parents (who were at the bar in Winifred so this whole issue of contacting them was a real test of human persistence). The next day we had to drag Christine out of the ditch with our feed pickup, Old Blue. This resulted in a dislodged bumper and some other, minor, damage.
#4 and #5: Phaethon has something against the red pickup. So, the red pickup my sister mentioned in her blog? Yeah, she wrecked it.....twice. The first time she was following my dad through a huge field. He was in the semi and he was going to leave it in the field, catch a ride back from Phaethon, then take the tractor out so he could pick up hay bales. I repeat, a huge field. Probably somewhere around 600 acres, plenty of places to drive in and not crash. Evidently she lost concentration for a bit. This resulted in a piece of angle iron, which is attached to the back of the semi trailer, screeching its way up the hood and through the windshield of the pickup. Yes, a hole in the windshield and a trench up the middle of the hood. Dad was angry. He was even angrier when, a week later, Phaethon backed into the same semi with the same pickup, completely destroying the tale-gate. We like to call this one killing two birds with one stone since she hit a vehicle with another vehicle. Note: the semi is gynourmous and bright yellow-hard to miss.
I don't even want to begin writing about poor Stella, Phaethon's new car.
I feel like I forgot about a wreck but I suppose I can close this one out. Now, what have we learned?
Don't let Phaethon drive the chariot.
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