Backing into the garage

So you have heard a few stories of not getting something by Dad, well this is the case when he did not see something for months because of the wonderful patch job I was able to do.

It was the summer and I was probably around 11 years old. I am pretty sure that the reason I needed to move Mom’s minivan out of the way was to get my four wheeler out of the garage. Now I would not call myself an experienced driver at the time, but I did take my first spin behind the wheel of the truck at the age of five so I should have known better. In any case, I put the car in drive, or at least I thought it was and hit the gas to go forward. The van did not go forward, to my surprise, it was in reverse and I backed right into the side of the garage.

Luckily the door was open so I did not tear the whole damn thing off, otherwise I know this story would have ended much differently. The van did hit the very side of the door frame which tore the wood trim off and pulled the track out of the wall a bit. My heart stopped as I assessed the damage. It was mid-morning, so I have a few hours at least to patch everything back up before dad sees this. The way I saw it, if he sees it completely busted up, he will just be that much more pissed, but if I patch it, well, it would not be so bad.

I got out the wood glue, found some extra paint, and added a few additional bolts to the track. I left the wood clamps on there until late afternoon. I definitely did not want dad to come home and see clamps on the frame, a dead giveaway to say the least. I then proceeded to put on 3 ore pairs of underwear. If I was going to get my ass beat for this one, I was going to have some padding in there.

Dad come home late that night and did not see anything. In the history of getting my ass beat, not one time did I ever have an extra pair of underwear, but there were many of times when I put on extra because I thought my ass was going to get lit up for whatever I had done. It was like he has some sixth sense to know when we were expecting it and that it would not have as much meaning if we were ready for it.

Days and days went by and nothing. He eventually saw the split in the wood one day we were out in the garage, probably on a weekend when we were getting ready for lawn work. By that time he was just like, “What the hell happened here? Looks like somebody tried to cover it up.” At this point it was safe to own up to it because the time had passed and he did not seem to be too upset. He did not even yell about it.

Now he would always say it is better to just tell me right away and don’t try to hide it otherwise it will be much worse. I can honestly say this was definitely the exception to the rule.

Shawn