Friday, Youngest Magnet was gallivanting about and managed to wreck my car. Nobody was injured in the slightest, for which I am quite grateful.

Youngest Magnet’s post-collision actions were less than entirely satisfactory. I will say that YM stopped the car, communicated, spoke respectfully (when calmed down) and told the truth, which are all good things, but the manner of YM’s communications were…well they were pretty darn subpar.

Thankfully, with Find My working on YM’s phone, we were able to get to the scene of the accident, because we sure as heck weren’t able to get that information out of YM.

Since then I have commenced a systematic training regime on how to communicate on the phone when it matters, something I thought I had trained YM on. While YM is facing some consequences for wrecking my car, the training is explicitly not any kind of punishment.

Just a few minutes ago I subjected YM to a pop quiz: “What are the four components of a call to 911?”

The correct answer was:

• Location: Always lead with this in case the call fails
• Situation: What happened
• Injuries: State whether there are any, and describe severity
• Action: What you want from the dispatcher

In the car, yesterday, I was driving and asked YM to simulate such a call with me repeatedly.

“I’m Westbound on Maple at the intersection with Elm in Townsville. We’ve been rear-ended. Nobody is injured. Please send the police.”

We will continue to practice until I am satisfied with YM’s performance.

The alteration from this structure when communicating with Mrs. Magnet and myself is to lead with “nobody is injured,” if that is the case.

In the Friday evening collision, the other vehicle was far less damaged than mine, the other driver exhibited nothing less than princely behavior, and I found cause to write the chief of police in that town a thank you note for the officer’s kindness with YM. I have the best insurance that can be procured for this eventuality.