Getting a car, your sweet 16, getting your license; these are all landmarks in the life of a teenager, boy or girl. Sixteen is the age that everyone wishes they could stay at forever. It’s the zenith of your teenage years. I know for me personally, getting my license was one of the most memorable days of my life.  September 17th was the day I was counting down since I got my temporary license.  I skipped school that day and drove my shining new Rav4 all around town with my huge ego on my shoulders since I conquered my driver’s test on the first try. Being a September baby, I was the last of all my friends to get their license, yet I was the first one to wreck my car.

I had my license for two months, which in my mind made me the most prodigious driver out there. Every time I would go somewhere, my parents would give me the whole spiel of, “Drive slowly! Go the speed limit! Every ticket you get is an extra day of work to pay it off!” After perpetually  hearing this speech, it became old very quickly. I had become a professional at completely zoning out, but having the appearance as if I cared what my parents were jabbering on with. As the snow began to fall in November (love Ohio weather) the speech turned into, “Drive even slower! Stop before you turn! Snow is dangerous!” And this is when I learned, I should have listened to my parents jabber.

November 24th, the first day of Thanksgiving break. My friends and I had a big sleepover to celebrate the vital break from school. With the few inches of snow, it felt like winter break, not Thanksgiving. In the morning as I was driving my friend home, I had to deal with my first experience of driving in the snow. Disregarding everything my parents said, I was overconfident with my driving as always because I got 100% on my driver’s test so of course I thought I was a superior driver. As I was pulling down my friends snow covered, unplowed street, I felt my car start to skid on the ice. The ABS breaks then kicked on; which at the time I thought my car was broken having never feeling them before. My stomach instantly dropped and my heart began to pound. As soon as the back end of my car began to turn out, I knew that this was the end. Naturally being the drama queen I am, I began to freak out and scream which did not make the situation (or my friend in the car for that matter) any better. My car began to completely spin out. Luckily there were no cars around but there was a mailbox. My front bumper smashed into the mailbox which quickly was uprooted from the ground, and the top flung off into the yard next door. Next thing I knew, I landed in the middle of a strangers front yard, in a wrecked car with two crying girls with it, an uprooted and broken in half mailbox, and a torn up yard.

Hysterically crying I called my Dad. On his one day off of work, this was the last call he wanted to get. At this point I did not know what to do or what was going to happen. My dad told me I needed to knock on the strangers door, which I painfully did. Luckily the person who answered the door was not the choleric old-lady that I pictured in my head. Nor did she think I was a nuisance. The gentlewoman benevolently told me not to worry and we exchanged phone numbers.

Later that week, my dad purchased a new mailbox for the family and installed it for them. Luckily things with the mailbox were solved, but my dismantled car was still a problem. Fortunately, I got the gift of snow tires, which are a life saver. To this day, my car still is still dented, incase of another accident. Every time I see the enormous crack in my front bumper, it reminds me of how driving may seem like fun and games, but it is truly perilous. And of course that my parents are sometimes right whether I like it or not.