Driving Me Crazy

Lately I’ve been engaged in a rite of passage, one of those things that separate the men from the boys, the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the chaff.

I’m teaching my kid to drive. 

Call me a dusty ol’ Billy Goat, cause I think I’m losing this one.

OK, he is 20, not 16 and that does help.  But he has AD/HD and that does not help. 

We get along great, and that helps.  My father taught me, and he and I didn’t get along at all,.  Also, his methods were a little unorthodox.  I still have a nervous tic that shows up when I operate my right turn signal, (Dad punched me in the arm on a particularly tricky corner and I've been a little nervous ever since...).  So I don’t exactly have a role model, here, and that doesn’t help.

Yes, of course it would be better to pay some professional to undertake this delicate task, and that’s exactly what I planned to do.  Even at $60/hour, I planned to do it – saved up the money and everything. 

Have you ever noticed that, religion aside, the true omniscience in the Universe is the Fate which knows, instantly, the moment you have any extra money?

Well, that Fate was on the ball last month when all this was coming down.  Though I’m not sure that we can blame my kid’s knee injuries on Fate.  I think it might have been that other omnipotence, Stupidity.  After all, he did try to learn to break dance…  on concrete.

Needless to say, my driver’s ed money went to the physical therapist who is teaching him to walk again, (Soon he’ll be chewing gum at the same time).  So there was no one left but lil’ ol’ me to do the honors.

I started him out slow.  I parked the car in a safe spot, (middle of a field.  BIG field.), put it in Park, set the brake, and taught him how to turn it on.  That took most of a morning.  Then I showed him the brake and the gas.  Made him listen to the sounds of each.  Showed him the tachometer,  Prayed he wouldn’t blow my engine (If he does, I’ll have to get a mule, 'cause buying a car is out of the question. Period.)

Then I left him there to do the two-step.  Gas.  Brake.  Gas.  Brake.   Three days later he was bored enough to risk letting the car move.  This was a real breakthrough.

We tooled on down to the local post office parking lot and I made him put the car in gear.  We drifted forward a few inches. 

He stood on the brake, hyperventilating

I talked him down.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

After a day or two of this, we moved to a bigger, more challenging parking lot.  I taught him how to do a “Y” turn.  Made him put the car in a slot.  We went round and round.

Amazingly – I was never bored.  Nope.  I was on the edge of my seat.  For one thing, I’m not used to being in the passenger seat.  Every time he came within 4 feet of the ditch, I gasped.  He stood on the brake.  Hyperventilated.  Now THIS was entertainment!

I think we might have died of old age there in that parking lot.  The two of us, driving round and round.  Growing older.  Growing closer.  Talking about all the things you never seem to find the time to talk about. The car becoming a clunker, then a classic , then an antique.   His beard growing longer, grayer.  Me getting senile, sweet, vague. 

So obviously I had to get him out of there!  I finally tricked him into a casual left turn on a deserted street.  Little did he know it was a public highway...   Of course, he nearly had a heart attack when he spotted the back lot of the Dollar Store, but by then it was too late.  .

So it was that old age and treachery saved the day yet again.

This story has a happy ending.  In a few short weeks he’ll go back to live with his dad, go to college.  Which means his father will have to teach him to parallel park.  And pay his insurance premiums!!!

Ha! After all these years, revenge!

He was never like the other kids. And now he's behind the wheel!