Three funny stories involving my mom and cars

1) The house I grew up and currently live in is about as average as you can get in suburban America and part of the look is a basketball hoop over the garage that I played on pretty much every day as a kid. Unfortunately, my parents both parked in the driveway. This wasn’t an issue with my dad because he was worked all summer, but for my teacher mom who had summers off, it was a problem because she had to move her car in order for me to play. Once, after pestering her to move her car for three straight hours, she agreed and as she was backing out of the driveway, I took a quick jump shot that bounced off the rip and landed on her windshield, knocking the rearview mirror off inside the car. It hit her on the knee pretty hard—she still has problems with that knee to this day.

2) Once, when I was about eleven or so, my mom was driving and I was in the back seat drinking a can of Sprite. When I was finished, I turned the pull tab around and pushed it against the rest of the can like I had learned at school earlier that week, the goal being to send the sharp metal part of the can flying. While that is fun on the playground, I clearly didn’t think what would happen if I did it in a car all the way through. In this case, it flew alright—and nailed my mom right in the corner of the eye. She swore and swerved onto the shoulder before pulling over and swearing at me.

3) This one time, also when I was little, I was again in the back seat. Now, my mom is, to put it lightly, a very jumpy person who is incredibly easy to startle. My sister and I have always loved to pick on mom because of that. She’s fun to sneak up on. On this particular day, however, I learned that startling her when she’s driving isn’t a good idea. I randomly shouted “OH MY GOD LOOK OUT OH JESUS CHRIST!” Mom freaked out, and then got really mad at me when she realized that the world wasn’t really coming to an end.

Yup, I was a really awesome kid. My mom deserves a medal.