austin...the ultimate dumb ass...:)

i couldn't make this up, even if i tried.

i couldn't find my keys today and realized that austin, who drove us to school, probably had forgotten to give them to me. as i was plodding to the car, it struck me that i would probably have to walk all the way down to the ball field to get them from him.

but than again, he might have left them in the car. i looked in. they were there. i got in the car and tried to turn the car on...grind, grind, grind....startled, i wondered why...and then i realized...

the car was already on...

the ultimate dumb ass had gotten out of the car...and left it running...for over 8 hours...

i had enough gas to drive to the ball field, walk down and tell him what he had done...and that he owed me $20 for gas...which he had to give me, plus he had to get out and fill up the car.

we just don't seem to have a lot of luck with austin and the cars. oh, he drives well enough, and i figure every day at this point is a good day to die. but getting him to a license is truly peeling years off of my life and making grey the ultimate in hair color for me.

first it was he wouldn't get the learner's permit. i thought this was stupid. what kid doesn't want his driver's permit? mine. why? no real answer. and i never got one. but i did decide that he was going to get the permit, period. so i made him get up and go to the DMV on a saturday morning. he was surly, and uncooperative and difficult and alternating between knowing everything and scared to death. for two hours we sat there, me with my hurting back in a chair designed by hitler. austin refusing to fill out the paper work. me watching the united nations that is the DMV. i felt like i was in a 3rd world country. and then, after all of this...he flunks the driver's permit test. did you hear that explosion? did i have a total meltdown? OH YEAH.

we have to wait 15 days to try for the permit again. this time, he is a bit more enthused. he actually studies for the tests, knows all of the signs. he has baseball at 10 a.m., so we are there with the rest of the refugees at exactly 8 a.m. already the line to GET IN LINE is doubled up inside. i take a seat. i wait for 20 minutes while he slowly gets up to the counter to get a number to get waited on, and then suddenly, he is hovering over me like a big buzzard and i hear the words "they won't give me a number." incredulous, i ask why not...and the answer is...he has no ID. he forgot it. it is at home...and now i have to go and get it, or quit again.

my response: i didn't think it possible to cry twice in the DMV. the whole way home i whipped myself into a frenzy, alternating between punching him and laughing. we get home. he plops down on the sofa and declares he isn't going back, he isn't getting his license. i get about 4 inches from the end of the nose and say tell him yes, you are. i snatch away the remote and the cellphone and tell him that until he passes this test, he will be sitting on this couch with no communications whatsoever, no girlfriend, no baseball, no computers. he will get this frigging license, and he will do it NOW, NOW,NOW!!!!!

he did.

i ask him if he would like to drive to the baseball practice. he says sure. only after he has gotten out of the parking lot does he reveal to me that he has never driven on the road or in traffic before. and here i thought his dad was teaching him to drive. apparently so, but only in an old shopping mall parking lot on a sunday...

i am thinking...it is, again, a good day to die. and this kid needs to overcome his fears. so we drive out into the world...on the interstate.

we make it. he is proud. i don't care anymore. i tell him, now, you have no reason to worry. you have just been put in the worst possible scenario for a new driver and you passed with flying colors.

since then, he is all about driving the car when we go out. even his girlfriend's parents let him drive when they are bringing him home. he does pretty well for someone who can't find his ass without two hands and a road map.

until today, when he got preoccupied over a stain on his shirt, and just forgot to turn off the car. how many different languages can you say "dumb ass" in?