Invincible

party: A social gathering especially for pleasure or amusement.

What could be more exciting than graduating from high school? After years and years and indeed an entire lifetime of studying, reading, taking tests, living through humiliation, and going to and from an educational edifice 180 days of each year – it’s over. Yes! Chemistry, Trigonometry, History, and the dreaded Health class are finally a thing of the past. Childhood itself is a thing of the past, as most high school seniors turn 18 just before or after they graduate.

Unfortunately, the amount of life experience in an 18 year old is not a lot. At this age they all feel pretty unbreakable. After all, for their entire lives they’ve been told that they should follow their dreams and they will get whatever they desire.

Some desire “instant adulthood” which they correlate to alcohol. Somehow it has become a rite of passage to drink before one is of legal age to do so, despite the education, the movies, the parental discussions, and, well, despite the law.

A party no longer brings pleasure or amusement when the host and his guest get into a car accident because the host was driving while plastered. According to Virginia Beach police, 18 year old Carter Womick sped around a curve at 3:30 a.m. and crashed into a tree. He was only a few houses away from his home, where his graduation party was still in progress.

The teen-aged girl with him might die. She had a serious head injury.
They were only going a short distance to pick up some cigarettes. Just around the corner, in fact, so they didn’t bother to put on their seatbelts.
He probably figured since he wasn’t going far it wouldn’t matter.

Not much of a party, since everyone left crying. Some may be crying for years to come. Instead of looking forward to all of his “adult-type” plans, Womick is now facing a DUI charge (because this was his second time in several months!) and he is charged with illegal possession of alcohol. Depending on what happens to the young woman, there might be more.

Yeah, a real party.