Terror filled my entire body.
Please lord, no!
It was the biggest day of my life. I was king of the hill. Then one man ruined it all.
When I was 15 and a half years old I bought my first car. It was a 1984 cherry red Jeep with a black interior. I bought it for $4000. I also had acne. The acne was free.
My first “job” was at a Baskin Robbins ice cream store when I was 13 years old. They fired me when they realized I was 13 years old. So, I got a job at a grocery store. They fired me when they realized I was 14 years old. Finally, I got a job at Eckerd Drug store when I was 15 years old. It was a stressful beginning to my professional career, but I saved money the entire time.
To buy a candy red CJ 7 Jeep with a trillion miles.
I cleaned the damn thing every day as it sat motionless in our garage. Since I bought it before my 16th birthday, I couldn’t drive it. So, I cleaned it. A lot.
The morning of my 16th birthday I fired up my obnoxiously clean Jeep, picked up some friends, and cruised to our high school. Bob Marley was playing in the tape deck. The top was off. I was on top of the world. Acne be damned.
After school, my friends piled in the Jeep and we headed out of the parking lot, through a neighborhood, and into the wild blue yonder.
Until I got pulled over for running a red light.
I can’t remember if I started crying or not, but if I had to put money on it, I would say I did.
It was the first day of my driving career and I got a ticket for running a red light. I was mortified. My mother was going to murder me. We didn’t have $250 to pay the fine nor the money to pay a higher insurance rate for the rest of my life.
Even though it was the worst start to my driving career, I learned a valuable lesson that day.
Run Red Lights.
Red lights are designed to stop us.
Sometimes you have to run red lights to move forward. Sometimes you have to run red lights to prove you are alive. To get unstuck.
Life is too short to sit at every red light.
Trey
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