Give Me A Break

Suddenly my arm was nearly jolted out of its socket. Miss4 had become an immoveable object at odds with her small frame.

“This isn’t our car. This is Nanny’s car,” she informed me, her eyes locked suspiciously on our ride.

“Our car is getting fixed,” I explained.

“Daddy, you broke it?”

Why do the kids always assume it’s me?

“Yes,” I admitted, encouraging her into the backseat. “I hit the fence.”

“Which fence?”

“Our fence. At home,” I said, contorting my body into the front seat and starting the car.

The next two or three minutes were lost in cries and tantrums. I seriously had no idea what the hell was going on.

“Y-you br-oke my-my-my bedROOOOOM!” she finally sobbed out.

“I said fence, not house,” I told her.

“You broke my room! YOU BROKE MY ROOM!”

Just a quick heads up: if you ever drive into our house with your car, laws be damned, you’re gonna wanna run. I’ll bear witness as to why you had no choice.

“I didn’t even touch the house,” I assured her. Over and over again. “I hit the fence. Remember?” Then I remembered a really important detail. “Four months ago!”

It’s taken me that long to put away enough give-a-shitness to worry about booking it in to get fixed.

“My room is okay then?” Miss4 asked, calming down.

We were pulling into our street.

“Your room is fine,” I said. “Look. There’s the house. Still standing.”

“But you broke the fence,” she said, stealing a glance over my shoulder at the yard as I unbuckled her.

“No,” I said. “The fence is fine. You’ve been using the fence lots since I hit it.” Even though Tracey wasn’t about I still felt the need to correct myself. “Nudged it, really. But the car has a small ding so they’re fixing it for us. That’s why we’ve borrowed Nanny and Poppy’s car.”

Finally, after the most stressful kind of five minute drive home, I thought she understood.

Then, with literally one leg out the car, she froze again. Paused. Took a deep breath.

“YOU BROKE MY CAAAAR!” she bellowed.