Teenagers are capable of doing some pretty dumb stuff. It’s all a part of growing up and learning from your mistakes. One of the biggest features of the overall human experience is the ability to do something so monumentally stupid that you’ll know forever it’s something you’ll never, EVER do again.
Some life lessons have to be learned the hard way.
I recently saw a post on a radio station’s Facebook page that asked listeners to share their most idiotic and embarrassing driving mistakes. So I kicked back, cracked my knuckles, and proceeded to share my own tale of wheel woes.
Once upon a time…
My friends and I had a weekly Friday tradition in high school of going for Chinese food at lunch time, and we took turns rotating between drivers. On one particular Friday in September of 2002, it was my turn to drive. As it turned out, I didn’t have my '79 Chevy pickup (Brown Betty; a legend in her own right), and instead I had my parents' minivan.
The noon hour finally came after an eternity, and the guys and I met up at our lockers before we headed out. We got in the van, turned on some tunes, and headed for downtown Outlook in search of some classic Chinese cuisine.
I turned into the alley behind AG Foods that leads to the small space for parking between it and the neighboring building; room for three vehicles at the max. On this day, there were no other vehicles sitting there, and this was where my brain turned the switch from "Funny, outgoing, lovable, I-don't-get-why-he's-single-because-he's-obviously-amazing Derek" to "Moronic, absent-minded idiocy straight out of a crappy Fast and Furious movie".
For whatever reason, I theorized that I could speed up the van and come to a skidding stop right before the concrete parking barricade.
"They'll tell tales about me during spare period FOREVER!" my simple mind concluded.
So I gunned it with about 50-60 feet before the barricade. My friends were instantly NOT on board with this.
I hit the brakes. As it turned out, I hit them far too late.
The van ended up barreling over the six-inch high concrete barricade, knocking it out of the ground, and it KILLED the van all at once. Couldn't turn it over or anything. If the van was a hapless scrub and I was Mike Tyson, I had just given my parents' minivan a "thevere ath-kicking".
My friends laughed, as they had every right to, and I flew into panic mode. This van was DEAD at the moment, and it wasn't going anywhere for the time being. We went inside, where everyone else carried on and ate while I simply sat there and stressed out. Looking back on this incident now, it wouldn't surprise me if this was when my grey hair started coming in.
We walked back to school (obviously), and everyone heard the tale of "Old Derek and His Lead Foot". Meanwhile, I had a phone call to make, and I was dreading it. I had to call the Ruttle Family Matriarch, otherwise known as the Warden and the Boss Lady - my mother Lynda. My fingers trembled and sweated as I punched in each number, and within seconds of hearing my voice over the line, Mom knew something was up.
"Derek, tell me what happened..."
I spilled everything, keeping as calm as I could for someone who may not live to see Monday morning. Mom was obviously mad, especially since she and my dad were going away for the weekend and the van was their only reliable vehicle. Surprisingly, when she came over to town and saw the van sitting dormant and with a parking barricade nestled behind the front tires, she didn't murder me right then and there. That could’ve been because I'm still her (favorite) son and my absence from her life would cause her too much grief to bear, or perhaps a more simple explanation is that we were out in public with people milling about, and anyone with a brain knows you do your deadly business behind closed doors.
But to this day, I'm still alive. The van was quickly fixed, my parents still went away for the weekend, and I've learned that minivans aren't designed for brainless teenagers pretending to be cool.
As for my dad, he eventually found out about the incident......five years later when I confessed to it in my toast at my parents' 25th wedding anniversary party.
To his credit, Jack didn't throttle me in full view of 200 family and friends.
For this week, that’s been the Ruttle Report.
