Clear the roads, hide the women and children

I seriously need some help. My driving ability has recently begun to suck. Either that, or the car Joey bought me back in September is jinxed.

I have had my license since I was 17, and have never (knock on wood) had an accident, parking ticket, or speeding ticket. Probably because my mother scared the crap out of me early on by telling me that getting into any vehicular trouble while on their insurance plan would result in the removal of my car and perhaps some internal organs.

Since purchasing my car, a beautiful Toyota Avalon that is seriously the best car I have ever owned (well, maybe except for that hot red Mustang I had in high school but that was for totally other reasons), I have managed to do the following:

*Procure a chip in the hood (NO idea how in the world I managed that)
*Procure a chip in the windshield (I really need to get it fixed before it completely cracks the entire length of the windshield)
*Back into an island at Wal-Mart, effectively tearing the crap out of the underside of my car and half-ripping the muffler off. Please note that parking lot was almost entirely empty at the time I did this miraculous feat of driving ability.
*Drive almost three miles and while I was waiting in line at Starbucks find out from a stranger that I had a completely flat tire. Yes, people, I drove 3 miles on the rim of my car without even realizing it, and it’s a total miracle that I didn’t wreck on the twisty-turny roads between our house and Starbucks. I kept trying to convince Joey that I had probably picked up a nail in the parking lot of Starbucks, but the evidence was in our gravel driveway that it was flat when I left the house. Oh, and did I mention that the guy who fixed the tire for us said in the 20 years he’s been fixing tires he’d never seen a nail go in backwards? Yep, I got skillz.

And now for the latest. Friday afternoon I went to lunch with my friend R. and we decided that Ruby Tuesdays would be a great place to eat. As I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed one of Joey’s company vehicles in the lot and an empty spot next to it.

You can imagine what happened next.

To add insult to injury, as I was leaping out to inspect the damage my brother-in-law and his cousin (whose company truck it was) came out of Ruby Tuesdays after just finishing lunch to find one very guilty-looking woman examining her bumper. The two of them just about fell over in the parking lot laughing at me. I think it only took them about 2.7 seconds after leaving the parking lot to call Joey and rat me out.

Joey’s response? “Hey, you guys shouldn’t have parked anywhere where Liz could hit you.” Gee, thanks hon.

Thankfully, I only brushed their tire with my front bumper – so a little elbow grease and it will be just fine.

When I first got my driver’s license, my brother D. used to tease me mercilessly about the perfect car for me being a 1967 Malibu with some railroad ties for bumpers and a little barbed wire strung around it for some extra protection. Now I’m thinking that he may have a point. Either that or perhaps I could find a nice tank to drive.