There’s a special kind of joy in finally owning the car you’ve been chasing for years, and overnight, her younger brother wiped it all away.
Without asking, he took her vintage set of wheels for a joyride and left it wrecked in a ditch. Now there’s a crazy repair bill, and she’s being painted as heartless for demanding he pay her back, but after watching her dream get destroyed, she’s not sure why holding him accountable makes her the bad guy.
This 28-year-old woman has spent the last couple of years saving up to purchase a completely restored 1967 Mustang, which is the car of her dreams.
She got her car eight months ago, and she adores it. She hardly ever gets behind the wheel, since she’s concerned about keeping it in mint condition.
Over the weekend, her 24-year-old brother came to see her, and he is an exciting person to be around, though he’s not that mature.
“He’s always been the ‘fun’ sibling, life of the party, always pulling stunts. I love him, but he’s impulsive and doesn’t think things through,” she explained.
“I went to bed early Friday night because I had work the next morning. When I woke up, my car was gone. I called him and he laughed and said, ‘Relax, I just took it for a spin.'”
“Well… turns out that ‘spin’ involved racing some of his friends down a back road. He lost control, went into a ditch, and smashed the entire front end. The repair estimate came back at just over $12,000.”
Unfortunately, her insurance company declined to cover the damage, as her brother was not listed as a driver authorized to take her car out.
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
In light of that information, she informed her brother that he had to cough up the cash to pay to fix the car, but he argued that he was too poor to afford it.
Her mom and dad are pleading with her not to force her brother to pay for the damage he did to her car, since he’s having a rough time financially.
“I didn’t listen. I had a lawyer draft a formal repayment agreement, and now my brother is furious. He says I’m ‘ruining his life over a car,’ and my family is calling me heartless,” she continued.
“I told them that if he’d owned up immediately and offered anything toward fixing it, I might have let it slide. But the fact that he stole it, wrecked it, and laughed about it? No.”
“So now there’s a huge rift in the family. My parents say I’m overreacting, my brother says he’s ‘cutting contact,’ and I’m sitting here wondering if maybe I really am being petty.”
Do you think she’s wrong to hold her reckless brother accountable?
You can read the original post below.
By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
