I should have just done the “mom-arm”

Last night, sound asleep, I was driving my car (somehow from the passenger side) and my mom was in the driver’s seat (somehow as the passenger, not the driver).  My grandfather was in the back of the car.  Not the back seat… no, that was empty. He decided to ride in the waaay back. I had my cruise control on and apparently wasn’t paying good enough attention, because we entered a turn a little too fast.  I slammed on the brakes, but I still ran off the road.  While I did recover control of the car (like Danica Patrick…Nascar-style), the act of running off the road had apparently damaged my car and all you could hear was this annoying clank coming from the back.  What you could also hear, was my mom SCREAMING at me and my lack of driving skills.  Absolutely, SCREAMING.

This has happened before.  Not in fake dream land, but in real life.  I was a senior in high school when I got into my 1^st car accident.  I hadn’t even left our driveway yet.  For the matter, I hadn’t even put the car in drive… I was still in reverse.  You can go pretty fast in reverse though (or maybe you can’t, hence the accident). I didn’t see it.  In fact, I didn’t even turn around when I was backing up.  I should have completed  the “mom arm” back-up procedure, put my arm safely behind the passenger seat, and jar my neck like some ridiculous yoga pose, in order to back-up.  But I didn’t.  I didn’t even look in the mirrors.  If I would have looked, I would have possibly seen that my dad had stacked a pile of wood in the normal turn-around area of our driveway.  But I didn’t.  Poor Ford Explorer.  Poor Ford Explorer that is now missing a taillight, and will forever have the indentation of my carelessness. My mom doesn’t yell.  I can count on one hand the times that she’s really yelled at me.  Don’t get me wrong, she has threatened (i.e. I’m going to pull this car over right now if…), but she doesn’t yell.  I think yelling might be a trait on my dad’s side of the family, but my mom doesn’t yell… except when you back her car into a woodpile.  She totally yelled.  She may not yell often, but it was obviously so great at that moment, that her yell still radiates throughout my dreams.