Do Not Hit the Mailbox, Mama
I guess I'm a little accident prone when it comes to pulling in and backing out of garages and driveways. I was reminded of this just last week.
A couple weeks ago I called my neighbor T to see if she wanted to do a kid swap--I leave Miss Chattyshoes with her and in exchange, I take her little guy J, who happens to be Mr. Busypants' bestest, goodest friend, with us to the McDonalds playland.
We are all set to go when as I start to back out of the driveway, the boys discuss how J wants Mr. Busypants to share his wall ball and Mr. Busypants declares that sharing was not in his vocabulary when it came to his wall ball.
I was multi-taking when it happened: backing out while assuring J that we'd stop at the house and get him a wall ball.
Crash.
Panic-stricken expletive.
I pull up. I get out. I stand at the back of my car, completely relieved to see no damage. Until my neighbor, who saw the whole thing from the comfort of her kitchen, points out the lower panel on the driver's side rear, all scraped in white, dented, and cut into the metal.
I hit the mailbox. And when I say mailbox, I mean enormous brick shrine.
"Scott's gonna kill you," says T.
"Lemme see!" demands Mr. Busypants.
What do I do? I rush into the car and pull out a box of baby wipes and start scrubbing the white chalk from the brick to clean it up.
A little bit of an improvement, but still in trouble nonetheless. For a split second I wonder if I can pull off telling Scott that I don't know what happened; I just found the car like this in the McDonalds parking lot. But I know I can't do that and besides, I have two, tiny uncredible but nonetheless damaging witnesses in the back.
This is not the first time I've had a mishap like this.
When I was in graduate school, I came home from class one night and pulled our gynormous SUV into our tight and tiny Berwyn garage that already had my husband's work vehicle parked in it (also an enormous SUV).
I took off the passenger mirror upon entrance.
I brought it in the house and handed it to him.
"This fell off," I told him.
"How?" he inquired.
"When I hit the garage."
Years later there was Work SUV vs. Honda Minivan.
I was backing out of the garage (the Envoy was parked on the opposite side of the driveway) when I took out his driver-side mirror with my driver-side mirror. Yes, that's right. I took out one of our vehicles with another.
Now to his credit, my husband always takes these incidents as they come calmly and with a dash of humor. Some of his nicknames for me: Miss Destructive and Destructo-wife.
So here I am again, staring at one of my stupider vehicle-related mishaps, sick to my stomach.
"Mama, lemme see," begs Mr. Busypants.
"No!" I exclaim.
"Why?"
"Because mommy's having an anxiety attack," I exaggerate.
"Ok," he replies, matter-of-factly.
At the McDonalds, Mr. Busypants examines the damage discretely and with tact.
"Whoa! That's a big dent. Look at that. The mailbox hit the car."
When we get home, Mr. Busypants takes another look at the damage and gives similar commentary as I go into the house and tell my husband:
"Don't even ask. Just go outside and look at the car. Then I'll tell you about it."
Miss Destructive strikes again!
A few days later, I am driving down the street after just backing out of the driveway. From the back seat, Mr. Busypants gives me the strictest orders:
"Mama, do NOT hit the mailbox, ok!"
I'm thinking back now to how my husband wanted to use some bonus money to have one of those brick mailboxes put in at our house. We had a $600 estimate. But I'm thinking with a $500 deductible from State Farm, that mailbox could get expensive in a hurry.
