We lost something at our house yesterday....

It was devastating. Well, at least to the individual who lost it. There was a frantic phone call, LOTS of tears and sup-sups (does anybody but me and my brother know what a sup-sup is? Ask me if you really want to know), more slightly-less frantic phone calls, apologies, a few calm phone calls with more tears and apologies.

But it is lost. For good. Forever. My daughter's perfect driving record of 3 months. Gone. Poof.

It was a wonderful thing before it got lost. Careful mirror checks, lots of blinker action, beautiful lane changes, stunning merge maneuvers and speed limit obedience. Beautiful, people. A wonderfully careful pile of driving perfection.

And in one split second it was gone. *poof!*

The good news in all of this is that nobody was injured, including the other driver's big, massive hunk of iron worthy of a small role in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. My daughter's car received slightly more damage purely due to size comparison with the iron mass. But it is all cosmetic. All the pieces are still there and the parts still function properly with no additional efforts needed.

And how do you think my daughter is feeling about her perfect little car now that it is in desperate need of cosmetic surgery? Remember the frantic phone call full of tears and sup sups? Yeah. She's 17, people. Her car just lost about 27-1/2 "cool-factor" points because it has a blemish. A scar. A reminder of what was lost yesterday.

The worst part of the whole situation is that she took the car without calling and asking permission. Why is that a big deal? Because she doesn't have her LICENSE yet. She is driving around with a permit. But she did have a licensed driver WITH her, so she won't be in trouble for that. It was that whole "not asking" thing. I didn't give her too much grief about it. She's suffering the consequences of it already. In the form of that huge blemish on the car.

Oh. Wait. Maybe that isn't the worst part. It was her fault.

Yeah. That would be it.

So if any of you happen to see my daughter's perfect driving record floating around the universe somewhere, with this happy face attached to it, could you please just pop that sucker in some time machine and send it back to July 3, 2009 at 1:00 p.m Pacific time? I think you could ask Napoleon Dynamite where his Uncle Rico purchased his fabulous piece of equipment and take care of it that way.



Or we could all just wear black next week and mourn her loss with her.


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Hope your 4th of July was a happy one! I'm laying in bed as I type this post, with my alarm set for 4:15 a.m. (yes, a.m.) for work tomorrow, hoping all the fan fare will die down soon so I can get to sleep. Yeah. That's gonna happen. It's only been dark enough to shoot the fireworks for about 1/2 hour. And it's Saturday. And given the scary neighborhood across the highway from me has been setting off illegal bottle rockets since 6:30 p.m. I suspect it may be sometime closer to July 5th before I get to sleep.

I may need a quadruple venti coffee-something-or-other tomorrow. It's already screaming "long day".