So here I am in the last semester of my senior year worrying about getting into the college I thought I wanted to enroll in AND competing with the driving skills of Nancy and Bob. I'd known Nancy since Girl Scouts, and not only was she a goody-two-shoes, but she was a pleasant, WASPY one at that. That made her all the more irritating. Now Bob you could out and out dislike. He was a wise ass, smart, and knew the guy I'd had a crush on since 7th grade (P.S. I still do, but in my day dreams, he never ages and stays 17 forever). I'm sure Bob knows too much about me even before I start the car.
Suffice it to say that Nancy and Bob perform beautifully. They parallel park, make sure to look in all the mirrors before they pull out into traffic, and use their blinkers with a cool suavity that would put #Beyonce to shame if she had been dancing and singing back then in a Chevy coupe.
Me? I'm so nervous that I'll forget the 20 things the instructor has tried to drill into my gray matter that I make all kinds of mistakes. We stall on a hill, I go over a curb, I practically strip all the gears until I finally get the damn car into park. I'm not doing well; the teacher (let's call him The Jerk) knows it, and so do Nancy and Bob, who by this time I call the Bobbsey Twins due to their saccharine smugness. It's not that I'd be a danger on the road; it's just that I communicate nervous indecision, and this can wreck havoc on a new driver.
Due to the above The Jerk decides to give me his final driving test without my knowing it. It's a BIG SECRET, but it doesn't matter to me. I'm in a down-spiraled loop and keep repeating the same dumb mistakes. But the whip cream and cherry on this poisonous sundae is still to come: After six weeks of instruction and being incarcerated with two of the least sympathetic peers I've ever had the displeasure to encounter, I have to thank The Jerk for his clever ruse of giving me a driving test without my knowledge. He practically demands it after patting my shoulder and spitting out one of his half-smiles. Meanwhile the Twins are in the backseat tittering silently.
I have to pretend to the Jerk like I'm forever grateful for his patient diligence. I have to thank him because (a) I'm the Student who knows nothing; and (b) the Jerk is the teacher who has the power to recommend or not recommend I advance to the state test. As for the Bobbsey Twins, I lose track of them as soon as they exit the car. I fantasize that they both end up as home ec majors in community colleges and have to apply for work at #McDonalds.
The Jerk hands out the driving recommendation but mine has more qualifiers than spots on a dalmatian. The Jerk suggests I go out with an adult (preferably a parent) and practice "a little more" before actually taking the road part of the state exam. I'll give him this. He didn't know my father or else he might have suggested I find a stranger in the park and let him/her be the designated adult licensee in the car. If the Jerk were critical about my skills, this was nothing compared to my father's opinion. We weren't in the habit of discussing school, but during my six-week driver's ed course, Dad interrogated me every night about my progress. We had progressed in our relationship to a point of commonality: He drove. now I drove. As a reward he took me after store hours to the parking lot at Lord & Taylors in Millburn, NJ, and for weeks I did nothing but drive in circles until the store security staff begged us to stop. I just think they felt sorry for me.
After all this pre and post driver's training, you might think I would rush out to get my license. I had a different take, and it slowed my engine almost to a parking-brake stop. The problem was at least two people who had observed me didn't think I had the wherewithal to pass the state test. So I procrastinated for close to a year--until I had to get a license just to drive myself to summer school. This is when the story gets short and a little sweet. I go to Rahway's DMV, pass the test (even the parallel parking) with flying colors, and feel a sense of pride for a nanosecond, Unfortunately it all dissipates into a drippy mess by dinnertime when I ask to drive myself to the library and get the famous Head Shake.
But there's a moral and confidence booster to this tale of driving woes. Now, several decades later, I can say with absolute honesty that I'm a good driver. I've never been in an accident in which people were hurt and I've never received points for vehicular no-nos. In two states. In insurance circles, I'm what is known as a "safe bet."
Now if I only had a few thousand of these confidence boosters, maybe the gloomies would go away for good. Meanwhile, there's a driving space with my name on it--I gotta run!
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