Carjacked

A friend forwarded this classified ad to me in an email:

OLDS 1999 Intrigue
Totally uncool parents who obviously don’t love teenage son, selling
his car. Only driven for 3 weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a
life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on
the planet.

I thought for sure this was an urban myth making the cyber rounds.
But after a quick Google search, I found a supporting article in the
Iowa newspaper that carried the classified.

So, it’s real. The mother who wrote it, Jane Hambleton, is being
lauded across the country by parents, emergency room personnel and the
like for the outrageous vehicle sale.

I’ll admit it; I laughed when I read it. And because the ad is well
written and this drama isn’t going on under my roof – it’s hilarious.
Can’t you just hear this teen telling his mom to “get a life” and
calling her the “meanest mom on the planet?” Those words coming back to
haunt him is an instant classic for parents everywhere.

I plan to save the article and whip it out when my children become
drivers. And for that reason alone, I’m glad she did it. But it’s a
guilty pleasure.

One could easily argue that this meanest mom on the planet
(it’s a shared title) could have sold the car without publicly
humiliating her young college student. All this attention certainly
can’t help the parent/child relationship in a family who must carry on
long after the phone stops ringing.

But whether you agree with Hambleton’s methods or not, this dust-up
has created buzz. As colleges are experiencing binge-drinking deaths
with an alarming frequency, the timing is right on. (Minnesota Public
Radio has recently completed an extensive series on the subject.)

It’s a double-edged sword, for sure. The best-case scenario is for
Hambleton’s young pedestrian to escape an alcohol-related death, so he
may enjoy a long life of pissiness over his public carjacking.