Unfiltered Story #286403

My brother doesn’t always think rationally or take the advice of those who do think rationally in stressful situations. It’s led to some interesting situations.

One day, he was leaving for work and he accidentally locked himself out of the house. He texted our mom first, but she couldn’t go home to let him in, so she tells him to call me. I work five minutes away from the house and Mom knows my manager would let me leave for an emergency. My brother instead texts me. I am not allowed to have my phone out on the floor (which my family knows), so I don’t even open it. Most texts I get during work are from my mom telling me to get something after my shift, so I don’t feel bad about ignoring the text.

I don’t know what my mom told my brother to do, but he did try to call me once. Almost ten minutes later. I ignored it, since he knows I can’t be on my phone and most people who call me at work are telemarketers. Eventually, mom has to call the store since my brother won’t. I punch out and head home. My brother is understandably super stressed. He’s supposed to be punching in for his shift now. I ask if he’s called his work yet to say he will be a little late, and he says no. I tell him to call and he says no, he doesn’t know which number to call (his work had a separate number to call when you were sick and weren’t going to show, but he wasn’t sure if he should call that number since he knew no one would answer it and he was going to be there), and it’s faster if he just leaves. I tell him to just call the main number for the customer service desk, but he says he doesn’t want to do that.

I roll my eyes and watch him zoom out of the driveway before going back to work. Later, towards the end of my shift, I get a text from my mom telling me to be nice to my brother.

The fastest way to get from our house to his work is to take the parkway. The speed limit on the parkway is 55. In Virginia, reckless driving is classified as a) 20 mph over the posted speed limit, or b) anything over 80 regardless of the posted speed limit. My brother was caught going 90 down the parkway. Virginia also has some of the harshest laws and penalties regarding reckless driving in the country, and there was a chance my brother could’ve lost his license. My brother had never gotten a ticket before for anything.

Mom got him a lawyer, who suggested he take a driver’s ed class. My brother took the class and did everything else the lawyer suggested. In the end, because it was his first offense and because he had taken the class, the judge let him off with a warning and three points on his driver’s license. My brother has been careful about speeding since.