Learning to drive

HA so anyone who knows this story has probably been wondering when I was going to post it...LOL! Summers in Chicago are notoriously terrible, hot, humid, and basically unlivable. Of course the house we were renting at the time did not have a/c and my parents were on the downward spiral of their marriage. On a Saturday afternoon as all 5 kids and 2 parents who are not talking to each other are sitting in a terribly hot house in the middle of July I decide this would be the perfect opportunity to have my Mom or Dad teach me to drive. At the time I was about 2 weeks away from turning 15 but had already signed up for my driver's ed class in the fall. I started by simply asking my Mom to teach me to drive and she said no. I ask again and again and again and again until I am BEGGING her to teach me to drive. Needless to say the heat and humidity had made her brain turn to mush. Plus the fact that this would be an opportunity to get into an air conditioned car and away from my Father...she relents. My sister Chrissy jumps at the chance to get out of the house and decides to come along. Now my Mother had "rules". I could not drive on streets since this was just to learn, so she drives us over to the nearby park which has an empty parking lot. Now we had taken my Dad's car because my Mom's car was in the shop at the time. We go to this parking lot which, by the way, did I mention is the parking lot for the Brookfield Police Station...???? Yes that's right my Mom decided that the place I should learn to drive is at the police station. We park in front of the police station and I am giddy with excitement. I get into the driver’s seat and my Mom tells me about the gears, the brake and the gas. And then very emphatically she tells me we are going to go around the building one time and then go home. I should not even bother to ask for anything more than that...yes yes yes I nod in agreement. I begin to go forward then I turn right to the side of the building then I turn right to the back of the building and my Mom suddenly realizes where we are and what we are doing. She looks around and sees policemen coming and going and you can see on her face that she realizes her mistake. So she says to me "stop the car" and of course I am thinking NO WAY I AM FREAKIN DRIVING!!! So I say "Mom just let me finish. You said one time." But she is really freaking out. So I make the next right and am on the other side of the building...we are almost done! But my Mom can't stand it anymore so she is telling me to stop, stop the car, stop right now, stop!!!! I am like no way! Suddenly she grabs the steering wheel and turns it towards her, which in turn moves me, so I try to brake but my feet have moved and I hit the gas and the car goes CRASH up the curb and into the police station building. The car is totaled and smoking and crunched! Now oddly enough at that exact moment there is a malfunction in the computer system at the Police station and every burglar alarm in the city starts going off. Now we have police men running out of the building, walkie talkies buzzing, sirens blaring and us trying to very quietly figure out how to get our car the heck out of dodge. My sister and I have picked up the front bumper that fell off and are trying to fit it into the back seat, although the front tire has popped and the engine is smoking. And of course the police have now noticed us and so have the people at the park who are coming over in droves to gawk at us. A policeman comes over to ask us what happened and my Mother being honest Abe tells them the whole story. We are ushered into the building and told to call my Dad. Since my mother and father were already on bad terms my Dad thought she was lying to him to get him all riled up. After much convincing he was forced to call his brother and figure out how to help us. My mother was given a ticket for letting a minor drive. I was given 2 tickets, one for driving without a license and another for hitting an immobile object. An immobile object...now if that building had only been mobile it could have jumped out of my way!