Chapter 97 Joy Ride

Saturday, May 27, 2000

This morning, Jared got a phone call from his friend Benny. The next thing I knew, Jared took off without asking or letting me know where he was going. I called Benny’s mom to see if she knew where they had gone. She told me that her parents had gone out of town, and Benny had taken their brand-new truck. I got worried. There are 2 more months until Jared turns 15, and Benny still has a few months until he turns 16. Neither Jared nor Benny has a driver’s license.

Richard and Benny’s dad drove all around the neighborhood to see if they could find the boys. I called all their friends to see if they might know where they were. The boys were nowhere to be found.

At 9:00 pm, the boys still had not returned. I wanted to call the police to have them help us find them. Benny’s dad was a police officer and told me that he didn’t want the police involved.

Finally, at 9:20 pm, Jared called to say that he and Benny were stuck in the mountains. I asked him what had happened. Jared said that Benny had taken his grandpa’s truck and they had gone 4-wheeling with it. The truck had gotten stuck in the mud, and they couldn’t get it out.

Luckily, someone had spotted the boys and let Jared use his cell phone to call home. Otherwise, who knows how long they would have been stranded?

Richard and Benny’s dad went to get the boys. They had to call a tow truck because it was impossible to get the Truck out of the mud by themselves. The truck was not meant for 4-wheeling; there was quite a bit of damage done to it.

When Jared came home I saw his pants were torn, and his leg had a cut. Jared told me he had to get out of the truck because it was tilted, and it looked like it was going to roll backwards down the mountain. But luckily, the tires had gotten stuck in the mud, keeping it from moving. When Jared got out of the truck, he got stuck on some barbed wire. It sounded like Jared was lucky that’s all that happened to him!

Benny’s mom wanted us to pay half the damage to the truck because she was sure Jared had put her son up to it. I tried to tell her that her son had called Jared. Richard told Benny’s mom that we would pay half the damage if the grandparents called the insurance company to report what had happened. Benny’s dad said they couldn’t call the insurance company because they would have to admit their son had stolen the truck, and both boys would have police records. I didn’t have that kind of money, and Richard was not about to pay half for a fancy brand-new truck. It got pretty heated with Benny’s parents.

I told Jared that he was grounded for a week. Jared thought it was unfair because Benny never got any punishment for taking his grandpa’s truck. Jared said it was all Benny’s idea. I told Jared that he knew that Benny didn’t have a driver’s license or permission to take his grandpa’s truck. I reminded Jared that he had taken off without permission or letting me know where they had gone. I had been worried sick about them all day.

Jared started to smart-mouth me. I told him I was going to add a day for each smart remark he made. Jard said,” I don’t care!” I said, “Oh, looks like you will be grounded one more day. ” Jared got even more defiant. He kept making smart remarks, and I kept adding a day. He ended up being grounded for 90 days.

Saturday, June 3, 2000

Since Jared is grounded, he has not gone anywhere this whole week. Having him home has been a living nightmare! It felt like I was the one being punished.

I knew it was not realistic to have Jared grounded for 83 more days. I told Jared that I would take a day off for each chore that he did. Jared didn’t think doing chores would be a big deal to work off his punishment, so he agreed.

Saturday, June 10, 2000

Jared didn’t think I could find so many chores for him to do, but he managed to work off every day that he had been grounded. When Jared was done doing all the chores, he said, “Man, I didn’t know you had so much to do! Do you think that if you worked from morning till night, you could ever have this place all caught up?” I told him even without my demanding calling, there will always be something that needs to get done, no matter how hard you try.