This post is dedicated to Frank Frank. Crunch.
I didn't start dating until I was 17. Once I found a girl willing to make out with me, I feverishly sought to make up for lost time. She came to my house for lunch. I went to her house in that sweet-spot between school and when her mother came home. My girlfriend would wait for me outside of work at night. On non-working nights, I would watch TV with her and her mom, and we would impatiently wait Mom out, sneaking glances at her ever-heavier eyelids.
It was on one such night that Mom finally went to bed, and Celeste and I devoured one another's mouths until they hurt, then made out some more. It was a delirious session, from what I recall, and it would probably be continuing today had we not heard the following scream come bounding down the stairs:
"CELESTE, IT'S THREE O'CLOCK IN THE BLOODY MORNING!"
I have no recollection of dashing to my car. I think I teleported, in a blink, like the title character in "I Dream of Jeannie." It was a snowy night in Columbus, and I drove as fast as I safely could, for I knew probable death awaited me at home, and I wanted to shave precious minutes off my infraction in order to avoid certain death. And then red white and blue lights flashed behind me. How patriotic.
I pulled over in a grocery parking lot, and the cop scolded me for my curfew violation like only suburban cops can. That, though, I could live with. "I'm going to have to call your mother and have her escort you home," he concluded. That, I couldn't.
When Mom showed up in her robe and slippers, she looked as amused as someone standing in the street and watching her house burn down. My mind raced to come up with an excuse. C'mon, brain, don't fail me now. Any excuse will do. Right now. Here we go. Any second now.
Stupid brain.
It came time for Mom to follow me home, and, my rear window completely obscured by ice, I glanced to my right and saw the cruiser and my mom's car safely to that side. I backed up. Crunch.
I had backed up into a newly arrived, second police cruiser.