Last month, something happened that chilled me to my very bones. I knew it was coming, had ample warning for years, but still, when the moment hit, I was stopped in my tracks, unable to breathe.

We were driving to the mall, and my teenage son turned to me, smiled, and said, "Hey, Dad, now that I'm 16, I'll be driving!" He might as well have reached over and stuck me with a shiv between my fourth and fifth ribs.

This isn't our first foray into these dark woods. We've had two older boys driving in our house. They're both out on their own now, but the memories of what they did to our cars still make me tear up.

Our oldest, now fully grown and living in another city, as a teenager took our Dodge Durango and introduced it to a telephone pole one Saturday night. He wasn't hurt, and neither was the telephone poll, but the Durango crumpled like an aluminum can. The entire front end had to be replaced, a process that left us without a family car for an entire summer. (When repairmen tell you it'll be two weeks, tops, they really mean #^&• • %^ you, pal! Buy a bus pass!)

Our second son, now in college, seemed to be more ambitious. He took my Audi A4 in the middle of the day and, traveling no more than 25 miles an hour, totaled it in a supermarket parking lot. There was damage to the fender. And the door. And the bumper. And the grill. It was kind of like the Titanic -- the damage in any one spot wasn't all that significant, but put it all together, and you end up on the back of a floating door holding on to Leonardo DiCaprio's frozen hand.

At that point, our longtime insurance agent called to tell us that if we had one more accident in our family, even one, we'd better start taking down the numbers when we saw those minimum coverage "we insure you for less!" ads on TV.

I knew I couldn't stop my 16-year-old son from driving, or at least from attempting to get a license, but I could surely slow him down. The first thing I told him was that the DMV offices were open only on weekdays, and that it might be some time before Dad could take off to bring him down to take the test. It took him approximately 31/2 minutes to check the Internet and find a DMV location open on weekends, conveniently only 6 miles from our home.

Next I reminded him that he'd need to take a physical. Under our current health care system, I said sadly, it takes weeks, if not months, to get an appointment with a doctor. I was only part of the way through my lengthy and intentionally confusing lecture on health care reform when he started tapping away at his laptop, smiled, and turned the screen to me. There was, it turned out, one of those "store front" medical stop-and-go places only 3.4 miles from our house where you could get a physical without an appointment. I sighed.

At the mini-mart doctor office, the nurse took my son's information and asked us to sit and wait for the storefront physician. I took the opportunity to remind my son that a physical exam always involves a blood test. When he started to look a little queasy, I assured him they would only take a pint, or maybe a quart, but that it was necessary to make sure he didn't have narcolepsy or some other disqualifying disease. He went white as a sheet but refused to back out. When the doctor gave him a clean bill of health without drawing even a milliliter of blood, I felt as if I needed smelling salts.

In the days since his physical, he's been studying the "rules of the road" book like a demon, looking up every once in a while to smile and call out, "Just think, Dad! I'm gonna be driving!"

So, as you're sitting safe and snug in your kitchen reading this column, I'll be sitting in the waiting room of the DMV, watching yet another McKay boy take the computerized "rules of the road" test necessary to get his learner's permit, the first of many calculated steps that will result in my saying goodbye to yet another vehicle.

If you stop by the DMV, make sure to stop and say hello. I'll be the guy slumped over in a plastic chair, mumbling to himself, with "1-800-SAFEAUTO" scrawled on the palm of his hand.

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