Seventeenth Birthday

My offer of bringing a delicious pizza and scrumptious cake is rejected.  I insist upon dropping by anyway with his presents and a small cake.  I am met at the door by my ex-husband, not with a hello but with a "we are about to have dinner".  My son opens his gifts while his father doles out their steak dinner.  I leave the cake and the house after the brief present opening session.

One present, that did not arrive on his birthday, but instead a day later, is the portable phonograph he requested.  He opens it and I receive one of those frantic calls at work that I have become accustomed to - he has broken the phonograph player - detached wires and small parts are everywhere.  I explain as calmly as I can - which is not calm at all - that there is nothing I can do about it while at work and that I will look at it when I get home.

Well,  turns out that while removing the protective plastic casing  a little too hard, he managed to pull out the needle and several essential wires along with it - And, yes, he did, within minutes of receiving his new phonograph, break his new phonograph.  It's a few days later and at the moment, he doesn't much care...

Adventures in Teenage Driving

A bunch of near misses while driving to school with his temporary license.   Driving test  - missed the first maneuver - bam - over - the battle axe examiner stopped the test - and he flunked.  Temporary expires  the next day.  A few days later  he takes the written test required to renew temps - nope, I mean yep - flunked that too. 

 A few weeks and few wins later,  approximately give or take 24 hours after obtaining his drivers license,  his brand new car is totaled as he is jackknifed while taking a left turn.  Despite his looking before turning, and that he was hit by a female driving too fast while talking on her cell phone, he is initially deemed at fault for a right of way violation. 

 More importantly, he walked away without a scratch, his dad lawyered up, and after several court appearances, the case is dismissed.

However, during that waiting period between court dates and the final result, life continued to be interesting, and not without incident,  in the teenage driving department.  

I receive a frantic call while at work,  upon entering our driveway,  he grazed his second car,  a not new but barely used and looking like new, Toyota Corolla,  agains't a low lying stone wall and scratched the front right side and fender.  He did not see the wall.  I am fairly certain, that prior to that moment, he was not aware of the wall's existence.

 In a panic,  he declares the certainty of his license being suspended after another violation.  I chuckle a little bit, which needless to say, did not go over well.  I explained that what he violated was our property - both the car and the wall - nothing authorities care or need to know about.  

Dodging another bullet,  all that was needed was a buffer and compound.

On no, I am not done.  A few weeks later,  he urgently summons me to show me his car windows and says that he couldn't see anything while he was driving.  I told him, in no uncertain terms, that next time he can't see anything that he should not drive.  I also showed him where his defroster controls were for future reference...He said he kept wiping the windows trying to see - he said other drivers were flashing their lights at him - I asked him if perhaps his lights weren't on - he said no that they were on.  I asked him if he was perhaps swerving while tinkering with his windows - he said maybe so.

Another bullet dodged.