A Tale of Caution

Ok, actually this just might be another chance for all of you guys to have a laugh at my expense.  I may surprise all of you to know I was not an angel in high school.  I did not come home on time, I did really stupid things like drinking beer underage, dating really questionable boys and lying to my mother.  I never did homework at home (cause duh that is what the other class periods were for).  I know all of this is shattering your dreams of me.  I did however maintain really good grades, which saved my butt more than once in a pinch (because she's a good kid, never in trouble at school).  Anyhoo out of all the stupid things I did, this is by FAR the stupidest thing I EVER did.  No amount of good grades or teen aged smooth talking was gonna get me out of this one.  

I guess I should start at the beginning for this doozy of a stunt.  See I was a senior in high school, it was 1999 and I thought I was in-freakin-vincible.  Now, I had never been one to skip school, if I didn't want to be there I just generally called my mom and made up a fake ailment so I could go home.  Usually it worked.  This day however, I just did not want to go to school.  It was a nice day and I just could not see myself cooped up in a classroom.  I was gonna skip.  Now, my only problem was I had to drop off my brother and the exchange student who lived with us.  I swore them to secrecy upon punishment to death on the way to school and then weaved my way past the barriers into the Senior Parking Lot and dropped them off.  Then I turned up the music as loud as it would go in my dad's big red van and high tailed it out of the parking lot as fast as I could.  I didn't even notice the van jostle to the side a bit.

When I got to my friends house (yeah she had skipped school as well but she didn't even make the effort to leave the house because he mom left for work at the butt crack of dawn and was already gone by the time she woke up), I got out of the car and for some reason walked to the passenger side.  THEN I saw it.  A HUGE dent that pretty much crushed in the entire sliding door of the big red van.  Ho-ly shiiiiiiiiit!  I am in so much trouble.  How in the hell am I going to explain this one to my parents?  They are going to kill me.  See those barriers I had weaved through on the way into the Senior Parking Lot...well, apparently I didn't do such a good job weaving back out of them.  

I went into panic mode.  I went into my friends house and just sat there, almost catatonic.  All I could think about is how my life was going to end for the foreseeable future.  I had to make something up.  They could NOT find out I skipped school.  I needed a lie.  A really really good lie.  

I went home early that afternoon, before school had officially been let out because I was expected to be there (I didn't have afternoon classes), and waited for my mom to get home.  She came down the road in her 1980 Triumph Spitfire and I prepared for the lie of my life.  I showed my mom the dent on the side of the van and explained how I had come out of school that afternoon to find it like that.

"Well we need to call the police to make a report," she informed me.

Now, in my head I am saying every single cuss word known to man (and some I made up) and then I told her I didn't think we should.  She insisted.  Then she left to go make the call and then left to retrieve my brother and exchange student from school.  This lie was about to take on a life of it's own.  

On the way to the school she pondered where I had parked and how I had got this huge dent.  Then she asked my brother where I had parked.  He hesitated...cause technically I didn't park.  Then he told her that he didn't remember.  Then it clicked in her head.  I hadn't parked at all.  I hadn't been at school.  Meanwhile I was sitting at home clueless and still reciting all the cuss words I knew at the time over and over and over again in my head.

The police man got there and I explained that I really didn't want to file a report and he became really insistent.  Then I heard the unmistakable sound of my mom's car coming down the street.  I got one good look at her.  She was PISSED.  I mean seriously, if blood could have shot out of her eyes from being pissed off, it would have been.  She got out of the car and proceeded to chew my ass out about making false police reports.  The police man then got in on the act and chewed my ass out about making false police reports.  Remember *I* did not want to make the report.  THEY wanted me to make the report.  I was crying and carrying on.  I then told my mom that I had skipped school but I was not going to tell her how the dent got onto the car.  She assumed that one of my friends had backed into the van.  The police man left and my mom proceeded to keep chewing me out.  When my dad got home, he chewed me out.  Oh Granny got in on the action as well.  Everyone wanting me to tell how that dent got onto the side of the car.  I wasn't budging.

That night I got ALL privileges taken from me.  No car, phone, tv, radio, pager (we didn't have cell phones as teens back then), or computer.  I was to come home and do my homework (which I never had because I had done it all at school) and then read in my room.  The length of time?  One month.  I was in some serious crap.  My life as a teen was pretty much over.  

I survived the month.  I actually finally told my mom exactly what happened when I was twenty one years old.  She laughed at me.  It is funny now, but at the time, I thought my life was going to be over.  

(OH, and B, (my 16 year old cousin who reads this blog) see what happens when you skip school.  Nothing good comes of it.  Go to school, listen to your parents and for goodness sake be nice to your sister.)

*Also my Granny thanks all of you for the birthday wishes, but she wants you all to know even though she is now 70 years old that she could still run circles around us all.