It was the call every parent dreads. The Girl called in sick to work and she, her godsister and two other friends went driving around yesterday afternoon - in TWO cars, no less. With the price of gas, "cruising" is on my list of pretty-much banned activities, but we were at Suz's helping her move into her new house - where apparently the teenagers don't have to lift a finger - and I didn't want to make waves. This has always been a bone of contention between the two of us. She thinks the kids should never be "bored," so she pretty much lets them do whatever they want (her two have always been brats, too - big surprise). I think that if you keep them busy, they don't have time to get bored or in trouble. But what could I possibly know about anything? Nevertheless, the girls got "bored" sitting around. Nevermind there was plenty of work available that they would have been perfectly capable of doing.
45 minutes after they left, Suz's cell phone rings and my daughter is screaming something about a wreck and wanting her mom. She didn't call me because she couldn't find her cell phone so she used her godsister's & Suz's number is programmed in at #1. The Girl was crying and screaming, "I"m sorry I'm sorry I'm so sorry!" As I calmed her down so I could find out where they were so we could get to them, all I could think was, "I'm so thankful she's able to make this call."
So we all loaded up in The Man's pickup and headed that way - down a windy, VERY bumpy country road. Apparently The Girl stopped so that the other 2 girls could catch up. When they did, she gunned it, lost control, hit a tree, flipped her Explorer and skidded many yards down the road, totaling her car.
Imagine driving up on this scene, knowing your child was driving that vehicle - yeah, the red one that's upside-down:
Or this:
Or this:
Interestingly, in a reflexive, protective move, The Girl threw her arm across Suz's daughter's chest on impact. Once the vehicle came to a stop, they both crawled out of the open windows. Had the windows not been rolled down, they both would be picking glass out of their skin today. Instead, they have only a few abrasions from the airbags deploying and on their necks from the seatbelts holding them in place. Oh, and the emotional toll on The Girl from losing both her beloved car and her equally beloved job in the same instant.
The police, fire & EMT guys said that they were lucky. If they'd been in a convertible, then most likely they both would have been killed or seriously injured. A convertible like the red convertible Mustang my goddaughter HAD to have, so Suz naturally bought for her. The car they almost drove but didn't because Suz's daughter isn't licensed yet and The Girl isn't on their insurance policy.
So in the postgame analysis, even though The Girl thinks I'm mad because she wrecked her car, I'm not. I am thankful to be able to call the insurance guy tomorrow about handling the totaling of her car instead of cashing her life insurance policy and finding myself in the surreal and unenviable place of having to plan a funeral for a child. I'm happy she's home watching TV and sending text messages to her friends instead of on life support or in the morgue. I don't mind being inconvenienced by taking her to & from school until she can afford to buy another car. I don't mind helping her find another job closer to home or even taking her to and from the new job so she can save money to get another car. I'm endlessly grateful that my only child, my precious Girl, is home, safe and mostly that she is still alive to be able to try out for drum major in a couple of weeks, go on her band trip, compete at All-State solo & ensemble and most of all spend another summer floating in the pool and solving all the world's problems with me.
Okay, just so you don't think I've fallen off the face of the earth, I haven't abandoned the blog, nor have I abandoned y'all (actually I stop by all my faves at least once a day, I just haven't been commenting much, if at all). You see, I sit for the Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychology's oral exam for full licensure tomorrow down in Austin. I'll be sitting for the neuropsychology specialization. It's pretty much the last hoop I have to jump through to practice on my own once my postdoc is over in December and I have been studying and reviewing like all hell to make sure I pass it the first time - even though there's really no way to study for it. Anxious doesn't even begin to describe how I'm feeling. The panic attacks aren't as bad as when I sat for the national exam, the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP) four years ago, because I have better coping skills now to handle them, but my anxiety is palpable and I'm really not feeling like very much fun or very good company. I have a lot to talk about, I'm just too nervous to do it right now, so just know that all's well and I'll have a really juicy and newsy post once I get tomorrow out of the way.
