The Fire Hydrant Story

Giddy up.

When I was fifteen years-old, I began dating a seventeen year-old guy from Halifax. My parents were not overly enthused about this relationship. It may have had something to do with the fact that his family chose to make a living on the opposite side of the law as my Dad. But I was young and in love, and my parents were letting me figure this one out all on my own.

So when I was approaching my sixteenth birthday this boyfriend of mine offered up his Mom's car for me to practice for my driver's test. In my ignorant teenage bliss I never for one second thought of that idea as anything less than spectacular. So off we went, driving his Mom's teeny-tiny car through the streets of Basinview. We went all down behind the rink, up by Kim Borgal's house, and were just driving past Basinview Drive Elementary when we realized that we would have to turn around as to avoid a busy street AND my house. It was at this point that I realized I really did have a need for driving lessons. I should have paid better attention in Drivers Ed..

As I began to make a sharp u-turn, the front right wheel caught a build-up of ice on the curb and the car ramped up onto the grass. Now if the yard had been covered in just grass, this story would be over and I would have wasted your time telling you about a boring and lame event from my youth. But it was the placement of the bright, red fire hydrant in Tyson Ardnt's front yard that proved hazardous.

SMASH!

So put yourself in my shoes at this point. What was I to do? I figured I had two clear-cut options: stay put until someone found us there and called my parents to come and pick me up (not tempting), or flee the scene like a well-groomed criminal...I went with option #2.

Well at this point I was completely hysterical. I knew that if my parents ever found out, they would never let me drive their car, even with a license :) With Paul MacDougald as a father, surely I would be grounded for eternity. I would probably still be grounded now while typing this story.

I decided that I would have to bury this one deep and pray for a miracle. My boyfriend dropped me off at the rink so that I would avoid getting driven to my house in a car whose bumper did not have a gaping hole in it 20 minutes earlier when we left. That might be tough to explain.

I was a mess. I was bawling, which I am sure was quite a sight for some of the neighbors. Unfortunately for me, my route home from the rink took me right past "the scene of the accident". As I approached, I could make out two figures standing over the now-horizontal fire hydrant. As I got closer, the two figures seemed even more familiar to me. How on earth was it possible that my best friend Trisha and my other friend Chris Prentice were in the middle of loading MY fire hydrant into Chris' parents' car???? Were my eyes deceiving me?

Nope. It was them. I ran over in a hurry and demanded to know what the hell they were doing. Turns out Trisha had always wanted a fire hydrant in her bedroom. "Put it down!" I screamed. "I JUST HIT THAT!!!". So if my counting is right, I was about to leave my own accident scene for the second time in less than 20 minutes.

The total bill to get my boyfriend's Mom's car fixed was $960. That's a whole lot of babysitting gigs. Luckily for me, my parents firmly believed in child-labour and I had three jobs: babysitter, paper carrier and Dairy Queen employee. Unluckily for me, it would have taken me about eight years to pay it off.  On top of the measly wages I was making at all three of these prestigious teenage careers, did I mention that my Dad was also my banker?

So for close to a year I skimped, lied, and borrowed my way towards becoming debt-free. The boyfriend and I had long since broken up and I was eager to eliminate all financial ties. Trisha lent me the last $300, at which point I was in debt to her. And the secret remained buried for the next seven years. I still have a hard time believing that my parents never found out....

...until one night at the cottage in the summer of 2003. When this story was finally revealed to my parents that night of our family gathering at the cottage, it was hearing my Poppy's reaction that I loved the most: he wanted to track the boyfriend down, beat the snot out of him for sticking me with the whole bill (which according to him was not what a gentleman should have done), and get my money back. God Bless Poppy.

And to answer the question that you are all wondering, no. Unlike this guy's experience, water does not shoot out of a fire hydrant when you knock it halfway across Tyson Ardnt's front lawn.