4-Year-Old Steals Great-Grandpa's Car in Search of Candy, Becomes Instant Legend

Four-year-olds can be pretty savvy when it comes to getting what they want. Throw a tantrum? Classic...

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Four-year-olds can be pretty savvy when it comes to getting what they want. Throw a tantrum? Classic. Be cloyingly sweet to your parents? Works all the time. Few have the audacity to pull the stunt one pre-K rascal did last week, though, when a craving for some candy prompted him to steal his great-grandpa's SUV and drive it to a nearby convenience store in the middle of rush hour

A 4-year-old boy named Sebastian in Blaine, Minnesota took quite the hero's journey last Tuesday morning on a quest for candy. The little dude swiped the keys to his great-grandfather's Hyundai Sante Fe off a wall hook, hopped in the driver's seat, and took off en route to a Speedway gas station 1.5 miles away, according to local affiliate Fox 9. He took a winding route through the neighborhood before turning onto a very busy thoroughfare in the heat of rush hour traffic, despite the fact that he could barely see over the steering wheel.

“I’ve never seen a driver this young before operating a vehicle,” Captain Mark Boerboom of the Blaine Police Department told Fox 9.

The cops were dispatched to the store after getting reports of a a child driving erratically at around 15 miles per hour on the busy road before pulling into the gas station parking lot. Miraculously, Sebastian made it all the way there unscathed (and without injuring anyone else), though he did hit a couple mailboxes, and bumped into a tree (Fox 9 also reports they found part of the car's bumper in a neighbor's yard). When asked why he drove to the gas station, he said he just wanted some Reese's.

As you can imagine, the incident scared the bejesus out of Sebastians' family, who are still grappling with the fact that this story could have ended very differently. 

“Panic, anxiety,” described Jenna Swenson, Sebastian’s mother, after realizing what happened. “A little of almost all the emotions going on...trying to calculate what happened.” From now on his family plans to keep a closer eye on him, and the car keys locked away.

Still, as ridiculously dangerous as it was, you have respect Sebastian's gumption, especially when you consider the truly acrobatic moves required for him to accelerate, steer, and see out of the windshield simultaneously. 

Just goes to show you should never underestimate the power of a 4-year-old's sweet tooth. 

h/tFox 9


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Joe McGauley is a senior writer for Thrillist. Follow him @jwmcgauley.