Story series - Point A to B to A, not C, D, or E. Clear?

You've learned from last week's post that I had been driving for less than a year when I hit the Hulk. I have a better story for you and it's infinitely more entertaining. :)

I was staying at my father's for the weekend and I was in the mood to have my best friend over to hang around with. My father did not want to go get him (he lived 30 minutes away) and I told him that I would be more than happy to go. He tried to deter me by reminding me that I was low on gas and he was not paying for gas.

No matter. I was willing to go and get him and take him back home. My father sighed and said to me, "Okay. I will let you go, on one condition. You go there and get him and come back here in one hour. Got that?"

I nodded my head. In reality, I was going "Yeah, yeah, whatever." in my head. He said, as if he had sensed that, "That means no stopping for food, no getting off that road for anything, nothing. Not even to go to the bathroom. Point A to B to A, not C, D, or E. Clear?"

"Yes, I got it."

5 minutes later, I was on the road with every cent of $2.35 pumped into my tank. I got my friend 20 minutes (yep, I drove fast) after that. I told my friend about what my father said and we had better hurry back. We were back on the road and about halfway to home, he convinced me to take a quick detour to look at computer games. What's the harm as long as I got back home in one hour?

After taking a quick look-over at a store located on a road perpendicular to the road I was supposed to be on, we got in my car and got ready to exit...only to find that the road was jammed full of cars. This added to my anxiety considerably - waiting for the cross traffic to clear enough for me to get out of the parking lot meant that the safety margin would shrink exponentially.

After about two minutes of waiting, suddenly there was a clearing and I jumped for it. Made it! My friend and I celebrated and high-fived each other. (Sound of a car crashing into another) Oh, bleep. Our celebration was short-lived. I had hit a car, 100 yards from the road I was supposed to be on.

100 yards. A block. A football field.

The driver angrily motioned for me to pull into a restaurant's parking lot and I followed. All I could think about was how I was going to explain this to my fa...when the driver jumped out of the car with a rearview mirror in her hand and slammed the door on the Cadillac hard.

Funny how I noticed the rearview mirror in her hand right away. Not her face, not her build, not her age, not her fashion style...just the mirror. As she stomped her way up to me, I could see she was a young woman, about same age as me...pretty and a bit heavy on the makeup.

She started yelling at me, which made it impossible for me to understand so I calmly told her, "I'm deaf." She glared at me, turned around, and walked around my car...to yell at my friend. I calmly said to her, "he is deaf too." and she threw her arms up and yelled in frustration before walking away from us. She went in her car and I noticed that there were 2 other young women in there. She got out and went into the restaurant.

All in the span of one minute. I took stock of the damage. My bumper was now pushed in and I could see the Cadillac's bumper was hanging a bit. I realized that I need to call my father. That's when one of the passengers came out and asked me if I go to that high school. I was stunned by not only that, but how easily I could understand her. I nodded at her and I asked how she knew that. She told me that she knew a girl there who has a deaf brother and she wondered if I was the same guy. I nodded again.

If you'll recall from my bully posts, I was the only deaf student there. Not hard to figure out. I was going to be a smart-aleck about it, but the young woman was very nice and pleasant. I was attracted to that. She asked if there was anything she could do for us and I remembered about my father. I asked her to call for me.

We chatted for a while (the driver got back in her car and never came out) and then my father showed up. Oh yeah. That look on his face. Readers, you KNOW exactly what I mean by that. Forget the Hulk. He had nothing on my father - I had to live with this one. He didn't say much to me. He didn't have to. I could feel it.

The young woman, after my dad left to talk to the driver and overheard my father ask the driver about contacting her parents, said "Oh boy, I don't want to be here when my friend's mother finds out." That's when I discovered that the driver was in bigger trouble than I was. No wonder why she was so livid and how she reacted to us.

She borrowed her mother's car...without permission and got busted for it due to my negligence. And my father? He asked me over and over and over for the next 6 months how much it cost to fix the Cadillac's bumper...and my bumper.