four-year-old boys can't drive
But they will be happy to come get you from inside to show you something neat. Something neat like your car nestled nose-first into a grove of pine trees 15 feet from where it was parked. And then they’ll tell you unrelated very important jokes with no punch-line’s, or wander off to play with micro-machines.
When the car is started, after a hard crank to clockwise to unlock the ignition, the front and hatch windshield wipers will be on hi-speed, the hazard lights will be on, and the high beams and headlights will be on.
The 4 year old was completely unfazed / uninjured.
Please no kill-the-parents-or-kid plots, accidents can happen, and at 4, every little boy is trapped in the event horizon of accident-causation.
I’ll be reimbursed for damages and don’t care about the car so much. It’s the rental car I’ll hate.
Edit for clarity: No, he didn’t jump out in front of me, he went outside, climbed in the car, played for a while with stuff, ran through the gears with no clutch (yay) and eventually managed to find the combination of car-out-of-gear and released-e-brake. My car then slowly rolled into a row of pine trees. He got out, shut the door, came inside, waited for me to stop talking to a co-worker, then asked if I would go outside with him to see something.