Everybody Get Dangerous!

I bought the new Weezer CD a while back and finally got a chance to listen to it on the way to our canoe trip. It's a little different, but what Weezer CD isn't. There is one song where they are talking about how it's amazing they are alive considering all the dangerous things they did when they were younger, including, but not limited to, bad driving when with a car load of friends. That song got me thinking about my younger days behind the wheel, and I, too, am lucky to be alive because of all the dangerous driving decisions I made, especially when with a carload of friends. It seemed to be the worst from 17-22 years of age. That first year of driving, I was scared spitless that I was going to kill myself driving, so I was old man cautious. But, by the time I hit 17 I was overly confident and thought I was a driver in the NASCAR circuit. There is one occasion in particular that sticks out in my mind. There was a scavenger hunt that some friends put together, there were probably 6 cars with 4 people in each car. Before we would receive our list of things we were supposed to scavenge, we were given a series of clues that would eventually lead us to the list of items we were to try to find so we could score points off each item. Depending on how difficult it would be to find the item, it would effect how much that item was worth. We only had a certain amount of time to find the list and then gather everything that we could off the list and head back to a designated location where we would determine the winner. Being that time was not on our side, everybody drove like a bat out of h-e-double toothpicks. I apparently am about to make another confession to my parents, because my poor parents were duped into letting me borrow their car. A 1988 Olds Delta 88. If you are familiar with the car, it wasn't the smallest car ever built. And it handled like a pig. On this one road, there was a curve that you weren't supposed to take at more than 25 mph. I think I took it at 45 mph. I ended up on the wrong side of the dotted line with traffic coming at me. Fortunately, that traffic was over a block away, because, had they been any closer, me and friends probably would have been shoveled off of Vinton Street. That is probably one of the biggest driving errors I ever made and lived to tell about it. What is it about having a bunch of friends with you when you are young that makes you lose all common sense. I guess the moral of the story is, if you have a child that wants to borrow the car so they can drive their three other friends around town, just say no. No matter how intelligent your child is, no matter how good they drive when you are with them, no matter how innocent they play it, when they are with their friends, they are doing something stupid at one point of another. Funny how the more things change, the more they stat the same.