My brother Michael is 2 years older than me. As lovely as he is now, he was a Demon Child when he was young. Pure evil. Bright, intelligent, resourceful, and determined to cut a swath of destruction around him.
Among some of his earliest acts of mayhem were several related to his decision, at age 3, that it was long past time for him to drive.
Adventure 1: Mother takes brother and me into town to get a few things at the store. She knows better than to bring us into the store with her and leaves us in car (in this town, believe me, it was safe). My brother figures out how to release the emergency brake. Two parked cars and a tree later, we finally came to a stop.
Adventure 2: My father, a Washington State Highway Patrolman, is driving I and my brother home in his patrol car. Michael wanted to drive. Now! Luckily the ditch wasn’t too deep and Dad wasn’t driving too fast.
Adventure 3: Poor father again. Mother is away to the Big City for the day. Father gets a call — bad accident on the mountain. There’s no one to take brother and me so he has to take us to the accident scene. He leaves us in the car with strong descriptions of what will happen to brother if he touches anything in the car. However, Child Demon doesn’t speak English. And the patrol car has a tempting, shiny brake release lever.
This is a mountain. This is a rolling car going down a mountain. See car roll. Roll, car. Roll. See the river at the bottom of this mountain. Go car, go!
Splish splash we were taking a bath, long about about a Saturday night…
No, no. It’s okay. We hit a tree just before going into the river.
One year. Three cars. One demon child. And one cute little helpless baby (Me) along for the ride…