Third Time’s a Charm

There’s (finally!) another driver in the Peacock household.  Just in the nick of time so that Tyler and Justin can fight over the car keys for the next two weeks.  I didn’t want to jinx it, so after two misses I didn’t pack my camera for the big event and you’re stuck with this picture from my phone.  Tyler was going to fake me out that he failed again by coming back crying, but he couldn’t suppress this grin.

By the way, he’s really a good driver.  The first test he failed due to male overconfidence and bravado (too cool to turn his head while scanning, scanning—12 of his 17 errors).  The second test he failed due to the fatal error of not stopping to allow a jaywalking pedestrian to cross in the middle of a divided highway.  Note to self:  lawbreaking pedestrians have the right of way any time any where.  This one he had knocked though, he only missed three and the tester (who incidentally was the one who failed him the first time) praised him on his scanning.  Shwoo!

On a side note, we lovingly refer to our starter car (shown here) as “crap on a stick”.  It was unwittingly christened that by Justin.  2 1/2 years ago when we were looking for a car for Justin to drive he had modest desires:  a small sedan like a Civic in a nice color like blue or black.  OK, that’s reasonable.  Jeff and I found COAS at a local auto fair held every weekend.  It seemed perfect:  clean, late model, economical sedan with low miles and a reasonable price.  We were excited, and told Justin we thought we had found the one.  Cutting right to the issue of highest importance, he asked, “what color is it?”  When we described it as a kind of metallic tan/silver (you can’t really tell that in this high quality photo), he sneered, “Ugh.  It sounds like crap on a stick!” and spent the next few months trying to figure out how to get it painted or at least add a spoiler to make it just the teeniest bit cooler.  Don’t even get me started on rims.  I just don’t understand what makes this accessory so important. 

We admit it’s a little bit of a granny car.  You can floor it and it will still only go 55 downhill with a tail wind.  On the positive side, it is the easiest car ever to drive and you can whip it into even the smallest parking spot.  In short, we love crap on a stick and hope it will be with the family for many years to come!