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Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Driving Bigfoot

It’s traumatic enough to teach a teenage boy to drive without having to do it during a period of time when oil sells for more per barrel than the movie Titanic grossed during its entire run—including endorsements, action figures, and Leonardo DeCaprio’s autograph on a commission check. When my son put his size 72 foot (appendages on the accelerator may be larger than they appear when peeking through my fingers) on the gas pedal, he burned $27.50 of premium unleaded and left a skid mark in my driveway composed of the entire collection of Commemorative State Quarters. At the stoplight he revved the engine and the smell of burning presidents filled the air like fake butter scent at a movie matinee. Counting the meager stash left in my wallet, I couldn’t help hoping he caught on quickly to the concept of three-point turns. Besides, I needed to get to the bank before closing time. I wanted to take out a loan to teach him to parallel park.

2 comments:

Virginia Lee said...

Every time I get frustrated about not having a car, I think about maintaining it and how much gas I'd probably waste wandering around doing things that aren't really necessary to our happy and healthful existence.

My favorite LOL bit in this post: "When my son put his size 72 foot (appendages on the accelerator may be larger than they appear when peeking through my fingers) on the gas pedal, he burned $27.50 of premium unleaded and left a skid mark in my driveway composed of the entire collection of Commemorative State Quarters."

Egad!

Nita said...

Ha! Lucky for me my children learned to drive when the cost of gas was figured into our budget, not the whole budget itself. Your vivid picture of the learning process shows me just how lucky we were, someone outside the family taught our children to drive.