The wait is over. The day has arrived. Anticipation has given way to reality. It has all come to fruition.
The kid has a license to drive.
The kid. The child! The wee little one … who isn’t so little. They permitted her. The state, in all their wisdom, noted that she was 15. Made her complete a course on alcohol and drugs. Required her to study a manual about driving – hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel, don’t run over small animals on purpose and all that – and then quizzed her on it. She passed it, of course. And then they checked her eyesight – she could generally tell the difference between a “B” and a “D” – and gave her a learner’s permit.
A license to drive!
It comes with some restrictions. The main one is that she must be accompanied by a licensed driver in the front passenger seat of the car at all times.
The FRONT passenger seat!
You know, right where all the action is. The VIP section. Witness to it all. So close you feel like someone is holding onto a belt loop while you dangle off a cliff.
Crikey!
Otherwise, she is free to take to the roads. This is what the state of Florida has decreed.
It was pretty exciting, I must admit. A major milestone. Not something that happens every day. Which is good. Because the human heart isn’t capable of that kind of repeated jolt. It can handle a lot, but that would wear a ticker out.
She came home with the license, flashed it in front of my face and said, “Well? When we gonna’ start driving?!?”
Um … yeah. I’m going to need a moment. Breathe, breathe. Think calm thoughts. The will is up-to-date …
We went out that afternoon. Very brave, I thought. I took her to a park near our house. I figured I would teach her how to pull out of a parking space and the importance of not running over Little Leaguers. That would be Lesson 1. Then we would go home and I would gargle bourbon.
Only, we kept going.
Drove down the parking lot. Pulled up to a stop sign. Drove out onto a road. Turned. Coasted. Rolled. Turned again. I think I blacked out and threw up a couple times. Turned. Pulled into a parking spot. Threw the car keys into the bushes.
Congratulations! You just drove.
She looked at me in dumbfounded amazement.
“I can’t believe I just did that,” she said. “Can we go again?”
Um … yeah. I’m going to need a moment. Breathe, breathe.
Let me just say: It is NOT easy accompanying a licensed driver in the front passenger seat of the car.
It’s not because she’s a bad driver. She is actually a pretty good one – restrained, careful, aware. Did very well for someone whose only experience is driving the race cars at Disney World, plus some bumper cars. And bumper cars are NOT the kind of experience you want a kid to draw from.
Rather, what made it hard was having to ride in the passenger seat where I had very little control over the situation, other than giving flawed instructions. As it turns out, I’m a terrible driving teacher. My directions are an odd cocktail of jibberish, frantic hand signals, nonsensical, poorly-timed jokes often misconstrued as actual instructions (for instance, “Sure, you can drive over their lawn. It’s perfectly acceptable,”) and critical commands that come too late (“Turn … back there!”) or in direct conflict with something else I just said (“Go … but first stop!”)
I say nonsensical things like, “OK, so just kind of gradually ease into the turn. You know, like you’re sliding into a cold pool of water. You know, how don’t want to go all the way in … because it’s cold … you know? Like that.”
She looked at me and said: “WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!?! Your directions are scarier than this car!”
And while she was doing great, I could not say the same for the world around her. I came to realize that our downtown St. Augustine neighborhood was not the slow, sleepy, easy-to-navigate closed course that I thought it would be. Rather, it was more like a videogame where the most ridiculous and absurd obstacles pop out from every direction, all at the same time.
Here is a complete list of things we encountered in the first 60 seconds: a horse and carriage, a large construction vehicle that looked lost, approximately 32,000 tourist vehicles gawking at houses and looking lost, some garbage trucks, a guy walking down the middle of the road carrying boat oars, dogs acting rabid, a driver who must have had a badger loose in his car by his erratic, herky-jerky steering, a bicycle race, the same lost construction vehicle coming back the other way, someone who thought Formula 1 speeds were appropriate on downtown streets, a squirrel who thought running out in front of a girl who just got a learner’s permit was a good career move.
My foot was pressed so hard into the floorboard that it left a dent went I got out. I had to make an orthopedist appointment so he can unlock my knee joint.
But we’re still managing. We’re still going out. And she is getting better and better each time. Our downtown obstacles are actually great training. Because the truth of the matter is if you can master that, there isn’t much in life you won’t be able to hack. Well, unless your heart can’t take the front passenger seat anymore.