High School Story: A Random Jacob Haller Thing

High School Story

Written 1 January 2003

Chapter 1: Tedious Amounts of Backstory

When I was growing up in Massachusetts, I lived with my parents in a small town called Holland. My grandparents also lived in Holland, across the street from where I lived.

My grandfather was a retired lawyer. (His biggest case was when France sued Amoco following the wreck of the Amoco Cadiz. For a long time he had two thank-you letters displayed prominently on his refrigerator; one was from the Holland town selectmen thanking him for organizing the town bylaws, and the other was from the government of France thanking him for his assistance in taking Amoco to the cleaners. He later returned the letter from the selectman after they pissed him off for reasons that I don't recall at the moment.)

I was of course a geek and was reasonably popular with the teachers, IYKWIM AITYD. I was also not a great driver. My senior year of high school I got into an accident while driving my family's '78 Chevy van, totalling both it and the '77 Chevy van I collided with. One consequence of this was that I got a traffic ticket for making an illegal left turn. Oops!

Chapter 2: The Foreshadowing

But all of that was behind me. My parents had got a new car to replace the van: a ten-year-old Oldsmobile Delta 88 with V-8 engine and 180,000 miles on the odometer. It was the most powerful car I have ever driven, and it was pretty fun to drive, keeping in mind that it didn't handle that great, especially if the roads were at all slippery.

And more, the superintendent of schools selected me and one of my classmates to go to this special luncheon for geeky kids with him. Quelle honeur, as the French might put it!

So things were looking pretty good. There was one cloud on the horizon, though: the morning of the special luncheon, before I went to drive to school, my mother told me that she was going to mail in the payment for my traffic ticket from my accident, but that it was pretty overdue, so I should be careful driving the next couple of days, because if I got pulled over they would run my license and discover that I had an outstanding ticket, and I would be arrested.

Chapter 3: The Event

So off I drove to school, driving slowly and carefully partly because of my mother's advisory but also because it had snowed the night before and the roads were crummy. I made it halfway to school when I suddenly realized: I had forgotten my permission slip! I wouldn't be able to go to the special luncheon without it! Geekiness was RUINED!

So I turned around and went home to get it. But I was running late by this point, and it was going to take a while to backtrack, so at this point I was no longer driving slowly and carefully but was instead going a LITTLE TOO FAST.

This went OK until I was going up and hill and started to slide into the path of an oncoming vehicle. I tried to straighten out and started to slide in the other direction -- stupid Delta 88. After more ineffectual manoeuvering I slid off the road and into a guard rail.

Or I would have had the guard rail been intact, but in fact it was smashed flat, I assume by other people who had done the same thing I was doing. This was unfortunate, as it resulted in the car being half on the road and half hanging over a fairly precipitous incline. I tried putting the car into reverse, but to no avail. So I put it in park and got out of the car to see if there was anything productive I could do.

As soon as I got out of the car it tipped over and slid down the incline, coming to a rest almost vertical and with its rear bumper approximately level with the road. It was a very impressive site, and I observed it with great awe.

I managed to flag down a car and got a lift into to town, where I called my grandfather and asked him to get the permission slip from my house and come get me. This he did. However, I wanted to go back to the car to get my book bag from the back seat, so he drove me back to the scene of the cr.

When we arrived at the scene a cop was there looking things over. I explained that I had been driving the car, and she told me, "Because of the excessive damage to the guard rail, I'm going to have to report this as an accident. Can I see your license and registration please?"

My mother's warning from the morning echoed in my ears, but I meekly handed over my license, saying, "Well, the registration is in the car, so I don't have that. But I have to tell you, the guard rail was already like that before I went over it." She looked skeptical and said, "OK, but how can I know that?" At this point, my grandfather stepped in. "Look, you can see there's snow on top of the guard rail," he said, thereby demonstrating that I was actually telling the truth. Yay! She considered this and relented, handing me my license back without running it or arresting me. FLAWLESS VICTORY!

Chapter 4: Aftermath

I made it to school in time to go to the luncheon, which was OK.

The mechanics were very impressed by what I had done and made a point of telling my parents that it took them two tow trucks to retrieve the car.

Astonishingly, it was completely fine and required no repair. (Well, the muffler fell off a week later, but that could have been just a coincidence!)

I still haven't been arrested.

This was something random written by Jacob Haller. To see another random thing, click here. To get a permanent link to this particular random thing, click here.