...is what my brother will be shortly, because he's only had his license for a little over a week, and he got into his first car accident today.

This morning he dropped me off at work and borrowed $5 for gas, and he told me that his friend's mom wanted him to pick up a car part in a town about an hour away (without traffic) from ours. She was going to pay him, and since he wanted to earn some extra cash he didn't tell my parents he was doing it, nor did he ask to borrow my dad's car. So when I got off of work, my mom had left me a message saying that her friend was going to pick me up, and that she would explain to me what had happened. So this is what happened:

My brother was driving out to this town, and apparently an animal had run into the road, which he swerved to miss, and drove into a ditch. Thank everything holy that he came out without a scratch, but the front of the car is all wrecked. So when my mom got the call, she hit the roof. She cursed so much my sister ran out of the room and hid upstairs. I wasn't even there and I can imagine just how many heads she was ready to rip off (Two specifically. My brother's, and the mother who asked him to do this in the first place. This woman is really in for it now...)

So then my mom had to drive out to this town to pick my brother up, and at 4-5 PM, those are traffic hours, so she's been hitting all the traffic. And to top things off, he probably had his iPod plugged into the car stereo at the time, something my mom has strictly forbid which he's pretty much disregarded all together. If my mom hasn't murdered him yet, my dad probably will. And as if to add to the ominous homecoming, it's just started thundering and raining.

And me, I... can't... wrap my brain around this... I kinda want to laugh, because in retrospect this will be one of those stories that we'll tell our kids when they start learning how to drive. Also, in a kind of ironic-could-it-get-any-worse? funny way, our triple-A coverage expired on July 31st and they didn't recieve the renewal check my dad sent (though my dad took care of that). But I also can't stop holding my head. This is like... arrrrgh... he's only 17, he just got his license, what was he thinking?? I hope he learned from this, that he'll be more humble about having a responsibility as huge as driving now and not be so condescending of my road paranoia. And most importantly I'm glad that the car got the worst of it, and that he made it out all in one piece. My life would be a sorry mess without him.

I'm gonna go hug him. Then beat him up a little.

I love you, Ben.