This is and always will be a dear, wonderful memory to me of my experiences in driver’s Ed when I was sixteen. Thank God that is over.
“Vroom, vroom,” I grinned while honking the horn loudly to wake up the whole neighborhood to pick up my driving partner. HONK! HONK! HONK!!! BLEEP!
My driving instructor took my hand, and quietly said, “I think she is aware that we are here, never mind the whole neighborhood. Could you please quiet down?”
I saw my friend come out of the house and I grinned and yelled out of the window, “HEY, LAZY BUM! GET YOUR SORRY BUTT INTO THE CAR!!!!!!!!!”
“Oh my gosh,” I heard him mutter and pull out some Tylenol. “Why do I have a feeling I am going to need this?” He swallowed two of them easily and smiled to the girl who climbed into the car with us. “Are you ready to drive?”
She grinned and said, “Can we listen to some music? Rap preferred.”
And so begun our driving lesson for the day.
Lesson One: Highway.
“Um...Jen,” the driving instructor spoke up. “You CAN go faster.”
I widened my eyes in surprise. “How fast?” I pushed the gas pedal really hard to eighty miles per hour.
“NO! NO! NO!” He screeched. “Slower than that. Around sixty-five.”
“Oh.”
SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! Came from the backseat.
“Hey leadfoot!” I called to the backseat. “Stop smacking your gum! It’s annoying.”
“Well, I LIKE IT!” She hollered back right into the driving instructor’s ear. SMACK! BLECH! “How is that for rude, dearie?”
I rolled my eyes and swallowed hard as my instructor tried to tune us both out and tell me to exit off a ramp. “WAIT!” I said nervously. “I haven’t done that before.”
“Well, this is just as good a time as any.” He told me. “See that sign up there?” I nodded. “You are going to exit when you get to that.” “Okay,” I shrugged. “No problem.” And then as I got closer to ‘the sign’ I put my turn signal on and moved into the next lane and proceeded to exit ‘into the sign’.
“WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!” He moved the steering wheel back into the lane that we were in. “Are you trying to get us killed?”
I furrowed my eyebrows and shook my head, “No...You said to exit into the sign, which I was trying to do before you, interrupted me.” I shot at the old man who was my driving instructor. “I was just doing my job!”
He huffed to himself and snapped back, “Maybe, I should have been CLEARER that you DON’T drive INTO the exit sign.” He pointed to the exit ramp, which we were close to, and said, “There is where you exit.”
“Oh,” I said happily as I exited off. “Why didn’t you say THAT in the first place?” He shook his head in exasperation and took two more Tylenol.
Lesson Two: Parallel Parking (do we really want to get into this one?)
Gumsnapper/ Leadfoot took control of the car. And believe me, when I tell you that she isn’t called Leadfoot for nothing.
“TOO FAST! TOO FAST!” He screeched aloud almost causing himself a stoke. Secretly in my mind I was calculating the seconds on which to live. He sighed and counting backwards to ten. And he did because at the same time he was counting he was praying to God, which we heard. He said softly once again to Gumsnapper, “Okay, you are going to move a little bit forward in front of THAT car.”
May I interrupt here? Thank you. I believe the poor guy would have FEWER problems if he did indeed make his instructions a little more clear. Gumsnapper and I weren’t going to ask him which car; we just wanted to pass Driver’s Ed. in the POS that we had to drive.
She, of course, proceeded to drive where he wanted to because she was evidently a mind reader. That is how she managed to pass high school. He sighed in relief and said to her you are going to reverse slowly, and I mean SLOWLY, into that space.”
Snap. Snap. Pop. “That space? But...but... It’s so SMALL!”
When he folded his arms and sighed she got the picture. Just do it. Ooo...Nike Commercial. I need new tennies. Oh yeah. Back to the story.
She backed up slowly......slowly.....slowly.
“You know,” he spoke up after a long while. “You could back up faster.”
Why did he have to say that? WHY?! Because the next thing you know, WHAM!
“Uh, oh,” I stated and said matter-of-factly. “I think you just smashed into that car.”
“You think?” Gumsnapper and I laughed while our driving instructor groaned aloud to himself.
Two more Tylenol.
Lesson Three: The Ride Home/ The Entrance Ramp
At this point, our instuctor’s face was not very happy. He decided that Leadfoot/Wrecker/Gumsnapper was not capable of driving the car anymore so he gave me the wheel. Not gave me the wheel literally, but he let me drive. Well, you know what I mean. We were driving along trying to find the entrance ramp when he suddenly cried out, “You missed it!”
“What?”
“You missed the entrance ramp!”
“Well,” I said in exasperation. “You didn’t tell me it was there.”
He muttered to himself, “Now, it’s going to take forever to find another one.”
Okay. Picture this. An exit ramp and an entrance ramp with only a median to separate them. I was sick and tired of driving and my instructor was getting on my nerves. So, I came up with a brilliant idea. It was truly original. I U-turned, went over the median, and down the entrance ramp. As I went down the entrance ramp, I smiled to myself and imagined that the screams I heard where of screams of glee. “See, I told you I would do it!” I said triumphantly.
“OH MY! YOU COULD HAVE GOTTEN US KILLED!” Came from the driving instructor.
“Holy shit! Hey, that was pretty cool,” said Wrecker/Leadfoot/Gumchewer.
“WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?! ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND!” The driving instuctor yelled. “STOP THE CAR! ON THE SIDE OF THE HIGHWAY!” I stopped it in astonishment where he told me.
Two More Tylenol.
I finally spoke up, “Do you think all that Tylenol is necessary? I mean, it can kill you if you take too much.” He gave me a murderous look and drove us home.
Three Things I happened after that.
1. He passed us because he said he didn’t want to teach us Driver’s Ed. ever again.
2. I got a date with the guy Leadfoot crashed into.
3. And, you can take a lot of Tylenol and apparently not die.