Why I Shouldn't Be Allowed To Drive

One day, I decided that dropping everything and running away to Tennessee would be a good idea. My boyfriend had 'extra room' and I really wanted to get out of town for a while. Turns out, 'extra room' actually meant 'half of a lumpy futon'.



He worked second shift so, if I didn't want to succumb to cabin fever, I would have to drop him off at work in the afternoon and pick him up at midnight. I could drive anywhere and do anything I wanted, as long as I paid for the gas. Yeesssssssss!



I did this for weeks, learning the ins and outs of the little town that he called home. They had three WalMart's and one Starbucks. I'm from SoCal. That was pretty not cool.



One afternoon, I was a quarter mile from home when a man in a very large truck cut me off.



I have some pretty nasty road rage.





I flipped him the bird and then, feeling very satisfied with myself, turned onto the back-road that lead home...



On a yield green...



Right into an on-coming car.




I was three-thousand percent certain that I'd just killed someone.




The paramedics came, traffic backed up, and I was very mature about the entire thing, dialing 911 with the incredible calm that one always imagines themselves having in a crisis. Some local country people even came over to help.



The girl I hit emerged from the car, completely fine despite her car looking like it'd been hit by a wrecking ball. I was more relieved than a kid at a gas station halfway through a road trip to Wisconsin.



This is when I noticed that the entire front bumper of my boyfriend's car was demolished. I was pretty upset.




I called him at least thirty times before he picked up and explained what happened. He offered to come home to comfort me. I told him not to worry about it and that the car worked well enough for me to still come get him. We would need to take it to the shop the next day, though.



We took the car to the shop which was, luckily, right across the street from the rental agency. We rented a tank of a car and got insurance.... just in case.



The same day, when it was time to take him to work, a huge storm rolled in, flooding most of the town. Refusing to miss work, he insisted that I drop him off a little early "Just in case the factory is flooded". We ran into a few large puddles but the ride there was pretty smooth. I dropped him off and then headed home a different way... which was completely flooded. Most cars were slogging through the water just fine so I figured that my tank of a car would be more than suited to brave the newly forming street-river.



Tip: Pot-holes hide in puddles.




I drove around all day, wondering why the car was so hard to drive.






When I brought my boyfriend dinner that evening, a very observant fellow factory worker pointed out my problem:



Well, fuck...



I had no choice but to keep driving on the bent, flat-as-a-pancake wheel until the next day, when we returned it to the rental agency. Luckily, they had ONE car left for us. We took out the insurance policy again. I drove like a spooked marmot for the rest of the week.