Mishka, My Bumper Car Buffer

I’ve always appreciated having my friend, Mishka, in the car when I’m going to have an accident. I try not to have an accident without her. She was in both my first car accident and my worst one. She was probably in others as well, but I can’t remember.

Mishka is a nickname for Missy which is a nickname for Laura. (All during my childhood I had longed to have a nickname, and Laura had two!) I met Mishka in high school when she was Missy. After learning of her Russian ancestry, my friends and I immediately began calling her Mishka (which means “bear” or “little bear” in Russian).

I was a junior in high school, probably seventeen, when my dad bought a white Volkswagen Rabbit. I really liked jetting around in the Rabbit – so small and low to the ground. And it was sporty, not like my mom’s station wagon. A much cooler car to drive when your seventeen. Well, much cooler than a station wagon at any age, I suppose.

The car wasn’t even a year old when I took my friends out driving one night. Our usual. Driving around our neighborhood, doing nothing. It was a slow night. We weren’t seeing any cars we recognized from school. We finally spotted a car full of sophomore boys from Bishop Watterson. (Underclassmen, but sometimes you had to settle to have a little fun.) We began playing car tag, a hybrid game combining elements of hide-and-seek and tag with our cars. (Don’t judge. At least we weren’t out drag racing.)

We were driving on residential roads and the boys’ car was behind us. I couldn’t shake them from my wake. I just needed to lose them for a minute so I could pull into a random driveway, turn off my lights, and have us all duck down below the car windows. We would be winners if the other car passed by and didn’t recognize our car.

The boys were driving a big ol’ Buick, a tank compared to my cute little Rabbit.

Someone inside my car called out for me to turn left into a winding road that led into a condo complex. You could argue – and we did – that it was more a driveway than a road.

I started to turn and… BOOM! The Buick ran into my driver’s side front fender, knocking off the Rabbit’s side turn-signal light and casing.

I was so scared. The damage was minimal, but I had just crashed my dad’s car while playing car tag! The big, bad Buick had nary a scratch.

The girls argued that it was the boy driver’s fault because he was trying to pass my car on a residential street. That’s not allowed, is it? The boys argued that it was my fault because I didn’t turn on my turn signal to let them know I was going to turn. I couldn’t! It was a last-minute decision. We counter argued that a driver doesn’t need a turn signal on a residential street to turn into a driveway. The boys argued that it wasn’t a driveway but a road.

Neither side suggested calling the police to hash it out. Game over. We all left the scene of the accident, both drivers accepting at least partial blame.

Now, the dreaded trip home to tell my parents I had crashed the new car. I dropped off two of the girls in my carload, but Mishka, who lived closer to my house, offered to accompany me home, to act as a buffer between me and the expected wrath of my parents. What a good friend.

The reaction I got from my parents wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected. Of course, I didn’t tell them that I was playing car tag. And the damage to the car was pretty insignificant — around $200, a claim we didn’t submit to the insurance company. Both factors weighed heavily in my favor. Not to mention the presence of my buffer, Mishka, by my side.

I remember my dad, maybe sensing that I was really upset, saying, “Everyone has to have a first accident.”

About two years later, I bought the Rabbit from my dad, and it became my first car.

After I finished college and had my first real job, I traded the Rabbit in for a Honda Civic. I remember being so anxious while the guy at the dealership inspected the Rabbit, praying he wouldn’t discover the log (yes, log), I had put inside the front passenger door a couple of years prior, to keep its window up. It passed the inspection! He apparently didn’t try rolling down the windows to see if they worked.Now that I’m looking back, I think how lucky I was thatthe problem window wasn’t on the driver’s side; it would have sorely impeded my frequent trips to fast food drive-thrus.

My biggest accident happened the following year. I had finally convinced my mom to let me drive her white Pontiac station wagon to school one day. A day that will live in infamy.  

During my tenure at Bishop Watterson High School, I relied on a school bus to get to and from school. I rode on one bus to get to school in the morning, but usually hitched a ride on Mishka’s school bus for the ride home. It dropped me just as close to my house as my designated school bus. As you can imagine, Mishka and I were embarrassed to be seniors in high school, armed with our own driver’s licenses, and having to ride a school bus. Most of our friends were in car pools. Mishka and I were the exception.

One night, I remember overhearing my mom telling my dad that she wouldn’t be working the next day. I was in the dining room doing my homework and they were talking in the adjacent family room. I don’t know why my mom didn’t need her car that day. She worked at Highlights for Children Magazine and used her car to get to and from work. Maybe her hours had started to be cut back – her work was pretty seasonal.

This was it! A chance to ditch the bus and actually drive to school! I was psyched. I paused to figure out how best to formulate my request. The words had to be just right. Affording her no opportunity to say “no.” After asking if I could drive my brother Jeff and I to school the next day, followed by a minimal amount of pleading, I rested my case. My mom finally relented after I agreed to drive straight home after school. My mom, by lending me her car, would leave her stranded at home the next day.

A car! Even for just one day, was going to be awesome. Having to take my brother Jeff to school too was an inconsequential nuisance I could bear. Of course, I had to invite Mishka to this unexpected and exciting blip in our routine.

The next day, we arrived at school without incident with Mishka and I in the front seat and young Jeffrey remanded in the back. That afternoon, when we were leaving school, we assumed the same seats. We had a cassette in the tape player, but I don’t remember what was playing. (Just that it never played again after that afternoon.) We left with a mob of other students anxious to begin their afterschool lives. We had no plans to go anywhere but home. It didn’t matter. I was excited just to be behind the wheel. No Stan the Bus Driver Man today! Of course, it’s not like driving your mom’s station wagon is very cool but it is, without question, way cooler than riding the bus.

We had just gone through a busy intersection. I was fiddling with the cassette player with my eyes glancing repeatedly at the rearview mirror, checking to see if I recognized any of my friends’ cars. I spotted Tino’s car which had just changed lanes and was now just behind our car. Tino was a pretty good-looking boy in our class. It’s pretty safe to say that my full attention was not committed to driving safely.

Suddenly, the driver of the car in front of us (our friend Becky), slammed on her brakes. I slammed on my brakes too, but I was too late. I smashed into Becky’s car. She smashed into the stranger’s car in front of her. Tino smashed into my car which sent my car careening back into Becky’s car and Becky’s car back into the stranger’s car. All because a stupid school bus had decided to stop to let kids out just past the busy intersection we had just barely passed through! Damn.

It wasn’t until after the crash that I first saw the school bus stopped in the lane to the right of us. If I had been paying attention, I suppose I would have seen its flashing red lights and stop sign projecting out of its side. This was really a dangerous place for a bus to stop, and I’m not just saying that to allay my guilt. The driver of the first car, the one ahead of Becky, hadn’t stopped his car until he was nearly past the bus. He must have remembered at the last minute that cars are required to stop for school buses. He slammed on his breaks first. (See what I’ve did here? I have subtly insinuated that the stranger driving the first car, caused the entire accident because he was the one to initially do something wrong.)

I was so thankful, not because no one was injured, although that’s important, but because the school bus that started this whole mess was not Mishka’s and my school bus! Thank God for small favors. The elementary school students on this bus were laughing and pointing at us. Whooping it up. (See? They knew their bus was to blame but they were going to get away scot free.)

I remember my school guidance counselor stopped to make sure everyone was okay. She offered to call all of our parents (except for the stranger’s) to let them know about the accident and that we were all safe. She made the calls at a pay phone near a shopping center a few blocks down the road. (This was long before cell phones.)

The police came and sorted us out. Tino and I were the only ones ticketed. I had a thing or two to say about the driver of the first car, but I kept my mouth shut. I had bigger worries. Like going home. After my first accident, my parents’ reaction was mild and easy going. But that was with my dad’s car. And the damage then had been minimal. It was different this time.

The hood of my mom’s prized Pontiac had bent into an upside-down “V.” Probably unsafe to drive. But I did anyway. The police officer didn’t question me when I declined his offer to call a tow truck. It would be fine. If I sat up real straight in the driver’s seat, I could see well enough over the hood. People would stare, of course. But again, I had bigger worries.

I couldn’t face the trouble that awaited me at home all by myself. I couldn’t count on Jeff to be on my side when I faced my parents. I turned to my dear buffer friend, Mishka, “Will you go home with me?” And like the solid friend she was (and is), she agreed. I figured my mom wouldn’t dare kill me if Mishka was standing next to me. She’d have to kill Mishka too, a witness. Killing your own kid is one thing. Killing the friend of your kid is something else entirely. She’d never be able to erase the big, red “M” her neighbors would paint on her forehead. (See what I did there? I played with the classic, The Scarlet Letter, to show you how well-versed I am in American or British literature – I’m not sure which.)

My mom was livid. Truth be told, I was just as pissed at myself as she was with me. The one chance I had to drive to school and I absolutely blew it. She would never let me drive to school again.

When my dad got home, he was just as angry. Mishka was still there. My dad must not have seen her or did not recognize her role as my buffer because he did not restrain his anger and frustration. Mishka remembers his yelling at me because I had driven my mom’s mutilated car home when it had a hole in its radiator. How was I supposed to know that?

We ended up having to have the car towed from our house to the repair garage where it was deemed “totaled.” My mom loved her car, though, so my parents had it repaired. We drove it for years afterward, sans cassette player, of course. The player could probably have been fixed too, but we didn’t know it was broken until weeks after it came back from the shop.

 I felt terrible. I blamed myself. Well, everyone did. My parents were so angry. Angrier and more upset than I had ever seen them before. Can you imagine what it would have been like if I had gone home without my buffer?