It was late at night. I had closed and cleaned the local pizza shop I worked at during my Junior year of high school and was beginning my drive home when something caught my eye out the driver's side window of the Plymouth Fury 3 I had inherited when my parents bought a new car.
Being a decidedly inexperienced driver, when I turned my head left to see what the something was, I overcompensated my steering and veered right...resulting in a glancing blow to the rear left quarter-panel of a car parked along the residential street I was on.
Did.
Not.
Even.
Slow.
Down.
I was so freaked out. I carefully drove the five miles to our family homestead on a little 40-acre plot of farmland, parked in our gravel driveway and quietly slipped into the house without even looking at what I imagined to be irreparable damage to the Plymouth.
It was a few days later, as I was getting ready to go to school or work or guilt-denial sessions, that my dad walked in front of the car on his way to the barn, saw the front-right fender, and loudly asked, "What happened here?!?"
Here it was...time to confront the consequences of my carelessness and the reality of my lawlessness.
I cleared my throat.
"What happened where?" I innocently asked.
Yeah, that's right, I totally went into Oscar-worthy territory and somehow made my father believe that I had no idea there was a two-foot dent in my right-front fender. "Wow...how did...man...somebody must have hit me when I was parked in town or something."
And that was it. I never suffered any punishment or restrictions because of that. It was never brought up again, nor held over my head as a reason for me to "be careful, young man."
Then one evening, while driving to Wednesday night church service, the whole thing came to mind and I found myself confessing the incident to my mother...who I was taking to church...with Beloved and our four children.
Nineteen years...yeah, that's about the right amount of time to let pass before owning up to something like that.
Did.
Not.
Even.
Slow.
Down.
I was so freaked out. I carefully drove the five miles to our family homestead on a little 40-acre plot of farmland, parked in our gravel driveway and quietly slipped into the house without even looking at what I imagined to be irreparable damage to the Plymouth.
It was a few days later, as I was getting ready to go to school or work or guilt-denial sessions, that my dad walked in front of the car on his way to the barn, saw the front-right fender, and loudly asked, "What happened here?!?"
Here it was...time to confront the consequences of my carelessness and the reality of my lawlessness.
I cleared my throat.
"What happened where?" I innocently asked.
Yeah, that's right, I totally went into Oscar-worthy territory and somehow made my father believe that I had no idea there was a two-foot dent in my right-front fender. "Wow...how did...man...somebody must have hit me when I was parked in town or something."
And that was it. I never suffered any punishment or restrictions because of that. It was never brought up again, nor held over my head as a reason for me to "be careful, young man."
Then one evening, while driving to Wednesday night church service, the whole thing came to mind and I found myself confessing the incident to my mother...who I was taking to church...with Beloved and our four children.
Nineteen years...yeah, that's about the right amount of time to let pass before owning up to something like that.
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