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Out of the office
By Chris Strunk
Last Updated: April 20, 2017

Teens are driving me crazy

These days, it's all about cars in our family.

Son Jeremiah, who is 16, has been bugging us for the past few weeks about getting a different vehicle.

Of course, he bends his mother's ear the most, because he knows he won't get too much sympathy from me.

He has a vehicle. It may not be the nicest, but it runs. In fact, Jeremiah informed us a couple of weeks ago that his truck is the third-ugliest vehicle in the Valley Center High School parking lot.

I've seen a lot of ugly ones up there. There's a Honda that appears to be held together with bungee cords and duct tape.

"The truck isn't that bad," I told Jeremiah.

Sure, it has its bumps and bruises.

I permanently closed the passenger window because the electric opening device broke. The overhead cloth inside the cab was sagging, so I stapled it up. The big dent near the rear wheel isn't as bad as it was the day my oldest son caused a fender-bender on Meridian a few years ago. That's because I pounded most of it out with a sledgehammer.

Yes, there's rust, but what car in Kansas doesn't have rust?

Don't worry about the oil leak. Just don't park it on your friends' driveways.

Hey, it runs. OK. It runs pretty good. Most of the time.

Still, Jeremiah wants a new vehicle. Not a new one, of course, but a different one. He has his heart set on an old Cadillac for $1,800.

I told him that he had to drive the truck through at least his junior year of high school, like we made his older brother before getting him a different car. That's only fair.

Plus, I don't want to get rid of the old pickup, which we've had for about 15 years. Selfish, I know, but it comes in handy quite a bit.

But the issue is bigger than Jeremiah. It also includes our youngest child, Marci. She's 14 and just got her learner's permit.

In a year or so, she'll want a vehicle, too, I'm sure. For now, she has to bum rides from Jeremiah until she gets her restricted license, and we told her she'll have to share a car with Jeremiah when she starts to drive. The problem is, she can't operate the truck. It has a manual transmission, and Marci isn't tall enough to push the clutch to the floor.

I think we'll be replacing the truck sooner than we wanted.

To make matters worse, I'm undergoing a third round of driving lessons. After teaching my two sons, I now have Marci behind the wheel. I warned her up front that if I yell while she's driving, it doesn't mean I'm mad. I just want to be safe. I want both of us to walk away when the experience is complete.

I don't know if my nerves can take another session of this.

We're signing her up for driver's ed.

Chris Strunk is publisher of The Ark Valley News. Reach him at 755-0821 or news@arkvalleynews.com, or find him on Facebook.




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