Welcome back to Story Time with Georgia, where I share weird bite-sized stories from members of the Colorado College community. Maybe you’ve taken a directive from Co-Star too literally, or perhaps you accidentally texted something to your parents that was meant for your friends. You may have even gotten a tattoo of Richard Nixon’s face on your back or thought that redacting documents only meant highlighting your secrets in black on Microsoft Word. If these sound like you or if they don’t, think of the most embarrassing thing that happened to you in the past six months and tell me about it. Email me at g_grellier@coloradocollege.edu.
Who: Kerry Yang ’22
When: Spring 2018
What: How Many Cars Would You Hit for a Starbucks Order?
Consistently bad drivers usually belong to one or both of two main categories: teenagers and Bostonians. A high school student in an affluent Boston suburb with a brand new driver’s license probably isn’t the ideal person to share a road with, a description that perfectly fits a former classmate of Kerry Yang ’22, whom we will call *Hannah. Yang clearly recalls the spring day Hannah, who had received her driver’s license that morning, rolled up to school in her mom’s BMW.
There are arguably only three central aspects of driving a car: the gas, the brake, and the steering wheel. Simple as that may seem, the close proximity of the gas and the brake proved challenging for Hannah, even after she passed her driver’s test. She had yet to master that particular system, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her from going on a celebratory Starbucks run during lunch.
The road to this particular Starbucks was lined on each side with parallel parking spots — most of which were filled. The cars occupying these spots were all completely stationary, which should’ve boded well for Hannah as she cruised down the street like she was Rebecca Black in the “Friday” music video. That is, until she attempted to slow the car and mistakenly pressed the gas instead of the brake. Mommy’s BMW scraped right through the sides of three parked cars that had the misfortune of existing between Hannah and her Starbucks order. The parked cars weren’t totalled, but Yang’s friend, the owner of one of the vehicles, was not thrilled to find several detached pieces of her car lying on the road.
Addressing the event later that night on an Instagram Live video, Hannah explained to her audience that she hit the parked cars by “clicking the gas” instead of the brake. She did not go on to explain the term “clicking the gas,” but it doesn’t sound great.
Not shockingly, Yang also reports that this Hannah girl was a serial double or even triple parker — the more spaces her car could take up, the better (in case someone, you know, hits it).
In the weeks following Hannah’s incident, a concerned passerby left a note on her windshield to inform her that she “parked like an [expletive].” She immediately took to Snapchat to defend herself, posting a photo of the note to her Story with the caption: “When losers are jealous that you have a brand new rose gold BMW and they drive crap cars #sorrynotsorry.” Classy, Hannah.
Takeaway: I’d bet $20 Hannah did not watch the movie “Herbie Fully Loaded” as a child, a film known to provide kids with a solid foundation for learning to drive.
