Hick Day A slight drizzle was falling from the sky as my huge knobby tires slingshot baseball size chunks of mud over twenty feet in the air. It was now October and the day I had been waiting for a long time had finally arrived; it was hick day. This is the one day out of the year I get to show my true colors to the school, because I am only one out of a handful of real hicks at Bob Jones High School. Now, because of my four past accidents that were all linked directly to mud riding, I had sworn to my parents that I would never put my Jeep Wrangler back in the mud. However, what would just one last time hurt? “This was it”, I told myself, “this is the final time I will go off-road in my Jeep and after this I will fully respect what my father and mother worked so hard to get me.” My near death wreck that almost took four of my friends lives and my life in the blink of an eye completely turned my life around, I now cherish and respect everything that I am granted. To begin with it was 7:30 in the morning and I had just finished making my rounds picking up all my friends for school. My buddy Caleb and I were in the front and we had been planning this day for months. He and I went all out dressing up for hick day. We both wore full camouflage attires from head to toe. I even had on my enormously thick camo hunting boots; they were so thick I could not even feel the gas or brake pedal through them. In the rear of my Jeep were three girls all crammed together in that tiny, two seater back bench, therefore, none of them bothered to put on their seatbelts. We were cruising at a steady 45 miles per hour heading to Research Park to go mudding and were partying all the way there. We had the subwoofers blasting and the music turned all the way up. It was so loud my mirrors looked as if I was in the middle of an earthquake. As we pulled into the cul-de-sac at Research Park I just kept thinking I cannot believe I am about to get my brand new, candy apple red paint job all muddy and scratched up. A split second later I slammed my Jeep into four wheel drive and popped the curb up into the mud. At that same moment a slight drizzle began falling from the overcast sky and that only made the mud thicker. We began sliding all around the mud covered, wide open pastures and then flew down the mud caked trails. As my massive knobby tires gripped the ground they ripped chunks of mud up and shot them like rooster tails over twenty feet into the air. Just a moment later the Jeep slammed into a four foot deep mud pit that sent nasty brown water up over the hood and completely engulfed my roof. At that moment a musty, moldy odor protruded through my air vents and gagged all of us. Then I looked down at my clock and realized the time was slipping away so I began heading for the exit. While heading down the rutted up embankment to leave, I pressed the brakes and suddenly lost control and began helplessly sliding down the hill, ramped off the curb and crashed onto the asphalt. However, nothing was wrong and we were now on the main road with twenty minutes left to get to school on time. In any case, we knew how bad traffic would be getting to school so Caleb suggested a short cut. I had never driven down Eastview Road and frankly I was kind of scared of all its rolling, twisting, and curvy hills, but on the other hand I did not want to be late. So I put my blinker on and off we went down Eastview. As we rounded the curves and went up and down the roller coaster like hills my stomach began to get that emptyless pit feeling. It was almost as if I was doing flips on a ride at Six Flags. We finally arrived at the stop sign overlooking campus; we were almost at our destination. Now all we had to do was maneuver down a huge curve on a hill that looked as if it was a dead drop off. My stomach began to churn as I rolled past the stop sign and headed down the hill. I tapped my brakes to just slowly coast down the hill, but all of the sudden I began sliding strait down at the Jeep’s mercy. I lost all traction on the asphalt and was hydroplaning strait off the road down a grassy knoll. Fear pulsed through my veins and as my adrenaline rush kicked in my seconds turned to minutes and I began trying everything in my power to regain control over my vehicle. I jerked my steering wheel left and then right, but it would not respond; I was heading on a straight line, crash course towards the driver’s side door of a minivan. Then all of the sudden I smacked into an object and came to a sudden dead stop. My ears erupted as I heard a monstrous bang from my massive tire exploding. A loud clang came from up under my seat as my transmission split into pieces and left a gaping hole where my gears were, and then at that same moment my driveshaft shot up through my center console tapping my elbow. I looked forward and through my windshield I saw my electric blue two foot shock flying through the air like a football being thrown from the hands of a pro quarterback. Within seconds everything began to clear up. I noticed smoke rising from the engine bay and smelled the unforgettable musk of burning oil. We scurried to get out of the vehicle before it exploded, but my friends struggled, because my passenger side door was lodged against some trees. I rushed to help them and jerked the door open as they scrambled out. From a distance I took a look at my Jeep and saw how my carelessness for what I owned cost me everything my family had worked so hard to give me. All in all I knew that there was no way I could undo my reckless actions so I walked over to the two ton bolder I had just smacked into and sat down. I began to contemplate all the mistakes I had ever made over my lifetime and what they finally lead to. I began to thank God for miraculously allowing no one to even have a scratch when we all could have been dead. After thinking for quite a while I shoved my hand into my pocket and clenched my phone. I began dialing my parents to tell them the news that my twenty thousand dollar Jeep Wrangler was totaled beyond any repair. That day I learned a valuable lesson that everyone needs to learn. You should always take care of everything you have and treat it with respect or it could almost cost you everything that you have.