Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Hit and Run {Ice}

"Mom is like the hug bank; whenever you need a hug, she'll give you a hug.
Of course, I don't often want a hug."
~Joseph (12)

Zachary could use a hug.
His car has been parked since last Friday night, when the snow and freezing weather hit.  We decided it would be best if he wasn't out driving on the icy roads, and he agreed.  

Yesterday evening I asked Zac if he would go pick up Joseph and Peter from their swim team practice, to which he replied, "In the dark?  On the icy roads?  In your car?"
I thought twice, and took another trip to and from the pool myself, assigning him a job in the kitchen instead.  
En route, along the main arterial, I had to swerve into another lane to avoid a giant section of a fir tree which had snapped in the high wind and was dangling upside down blocking the entire lane like a wall of evergreen. Was I ever glad that it hadn't been Zac behind the wheel at that moment!

Today the weather warmed up a bit, and it seemed safe enough for Zachary to drive to swim team practice.  Unfortunately, his car wouldn't turn over.  The battery probably got zapped from the cold spell.  As he and Ezra were coming back toward the house to ask me for a shuttle to the pool, Zac noticed that his rear license plate was dented... and the frame was broken off... and there was amber colored broken plastic on the ground... and there were two large cracks to his back bumper... and the car had been pushed forward about six feet from where it had originally been parked Friday night in the snow.

Zac's car was hit!  And the driver left without owning up to the accident.  Nice.
So much for keeping the car safely parked during the icy weather.  At least we were able to keep the kid safe!

Oddly enough, it was in that very same parking spot in front of our house a few years ago that our van was crashed by a neighbor's nanny who was distracted with her cell phone.  

Maybe we need to put up a cement barrier to protect our parked cars from the neighborhood drivers!