Goddamn Brownies

Earlier today I went for a walk with Jenny and Fulci. On the way back from a back alley behind some houses there was a small, silver ball slowly rolling our way. No kid chasing it, didn't even hear any out and about. We kept walking, periodically checking to see if it had reached the street yet. As it did, a driver hit their brakes in case some dumb kid came tumbling after. This caused my mind to drift back.

Remember in driver's ed, all the weird scenarios you had to go over, and over, and over again? Stuff you thought would never happen like it does in those cheesy videos. I felt that way too, until one day out in the car with good ol' Coach Horner. We were going through a residential area during the summer, so there were plenty of kids dicking around in their yards. I was going steady, with my hands at ten and two, when it happened. It was as if some sort of joke was being played on me. Parked cars all along the street and the faint noise of children could be heard, when a small rubber ball rolled out into the street. Kind of like a kickball. I knew to hit the breaks and sure enough some oblivious kid fumbled after his precious ball. I could not believe stuff like that really happened. Of course, since then I have gone through many of those "worst case scenarios" - hood flying up and blinding my vision, pretty much anything imaginable involving ice or other stupid drivers.

Another great thing happened that summer during driver's ed. I was in a car with two girls, Emily Hodges and someone I do not recall, so the coach was pretty tough on me. The smallest of errors was met with his fist hitting me in the right arm. I had a bruise there for the duration of our rides together. Anyway, our first day out he drove us out in a rural area and Emily was game to go first. She was cruising along like a pro, or as much of a pro a sixteen year old can be. Up ahead there were several birds in the road, Horner told her, "go ahead they'll move." She kept on, and they all flew away - all but one. This little baby bird, probably too young to fly, hopped around until his life ended at the hands of our car's tires. She was tearing up, the rest of us were laughing and she would be known for the rest of the course as "birdslayer."