As The World Turns

The boy had a job interview yesterday. Yay team. Because his car is in need of a new master cylinder, we let him take the truck. This is the call I received from my son late in the afternoon:

"Hello?"

"Mom? Did you know the truck isn't registered?"

Pause.

"Ruh Roh, where are you?"

"At Chucky's Mobil" (three miles from home, not bad)

"Did you make it to the interview?"

"Yes, but MOM! What am I going to do? I'm SO angry right now"

"Well, hang tight, I'll be leaving in a minute to get you"

"MOM! I won't see you for an hour!"

"Well, start walking, its only 3 miles"

"MOM! I'm so angry right now!!"

"Walk. It'll do you good"

"Mom, isn't there another way?"

(???????????)

"Sean, I'm leaving now. If you are at the truck when I go by, I'll pick you up. If you are not, I'll see you at home. Good bye."

He called me again when I was almost there, to tell me that while he was walking a friend picked him up, so he was home. I forget at what point I learned that the key was locked in the truck, and oh by the way, the lights were on. Ooooooookay. Lots of little issues here. How am I going to get the truck home, unregistered, even if I get the key out, and it won't even start?? I have the Hybrid, and you can't jump off it. I call Triple A, they state they are very busy, and it will be at least an hour to get there. I send Sean back home with the Hybrid. He doesn't want to hang out with me because when the police officer caught him for driving an unregistered vehicle, he had previously seen Sean coming out of the Mobil station with 3 packs of cigarettes. Looking at his license, the officer noticed that Sean was underage, so not only confiscated the cigarettes, but brought him into the Mobil to confront the clerks, some nice East Indian fellows who are now in big trouble. Sean is embarrassed.

Drum roll please - Paul calls. He usually has plans for Mondays, but after I explained the situation he decided to come to the rescue. Yay. He has jumper cables in his Suburu, and is about 7 miles away. We get the truck started, and Paul decides to take the risk and drive it the 3 miles home.

I tried to explain to Sean that that scenario could have played out much worse - it could have been on his way to the interview, it could have been 20 miles from home. He could have lost his license. All sorts of things that could have been worse. And I had to eat crow. The poor kid did nothing wrong, but yet again had to deal with police and received a $98 ticket. Paul and I owned up to our lack of responsibility in this case - hopefully setting an example? We'll pay the $98, but Paul wants to take it to court, and with luck will get it nollied. I asked him how he thought he could win something like that, when the fact is Sean was driving an unregistered vehicle. He said it was worth taking a chance that they might throw it out since Sean didn't know, trusting that his parents wouldn't tell him to drive a vehicle which wasn't registered. I guess this is a serious hit for insurance, which will increase the cost significantly, and if you've never seen the cost for insuring a teenager, you won't know what that really means! And we feel badly that Sean will have this on his license, so Paul will try to fix it. He's an awesome fixer.

So he and Sean installed the master cylinder last night in Sean's car. It now stops when you brake. Nice. I don't know if Sean will ever appreciate that Paul has been, is, and always will be there for him. Paul is that boy's TRUE dad. When a man chooses to do the things for a boy that should be done, that need to be done, as opposed to the genetic donor who walked away from that boy, who counts?? Yeah, the choice to do whats right rules every time. So Sean has his car back again, and will probably start working this week.

I've included some photos of something interesting I saw while driving to work the other day. Does anyone else draw that same parallels as I?

Peace, and happy snacking...