You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.
Teenagers learning to drive.
My 15 -year-old daughter just got her TN driving permit.
She got one question wrong on the written test. I am proud of her. But believe me, writing and driving ain’t the same thing.
All I can say is watch out citizens of Earth.
Remember when you started driving? Remember the excitement? the Power? The freedom? Remember how your mom and dad cringed, or barked at you making you nervous? This is one of those life moments.
DATELINE: FRANKLIN, Tennessee
My wife is the teacher. My daughter the student. The wife says the girl is overflowing with enthusiasm, like bubbles dripping off a newly bathed toddler.
So the wife stops the car on the side of the road in our sub division. She looks at the effusive 15-year-old and says “you drive.”
The girl jumps in the driver’s seat like a cat pouncing on a rodent.
“How do I move the seat? Where’s the rear view mirror control? How do I put on the blinker?”
The frenetic energy in her words is matched only by the anxious twitch in her right foot.
“OK, take it easy, ” the wife says with all the calm of a guy packing a nuclear device into the belly of a plane.
The inexperienced driver puts the monster into gear and ….
VROOOMMMMMMM!
8 cylinders of finely tuned Nissan Automobile jerk forward like a rocket sled of death.
I imagine their heads being pushed back against the seat-rest in a barrage of g-forces that pull back the flesh on their faces. I imagine the dash board Jesus rocketing off the dash board like a javelin, its halo embedding in the rear hatch.
“You could lose an eye in this drive” my crazy brain says.
Back to reality.
The road in the sub division is straight and long and devoid of humanity. Good thing as the young driver fills up the center of the asphalt, splitting the roadway, like a gymnast clinging to a balance beam.
For some unexplained reason, the car is still accelerating. The wife’s heart is pounding like a jazz musician banging the skins.
“Speed limit’s 35 mph,” she says trying not to sound like the fire alarm of panic that is raging inside her skull.
Honestly, the girl would almost have to have a tornado drop a cow out of the sky onto the road to actually cause any driver to leave the roadway at this juncture in the trip. The road is wide and flat and straight and empty. It’s exactly the kind of road you don’t want to take your brand new Porsche to test lateral accelaration ratios. But it is perfect for the first time driver.
Meanwhile; the question in my mind is: HAS SHE EVER DRIVEN ANYTHING IN HER LIFE?
It’s a good question for a dad to ask, don’t you think?
Yeah, she got one question wrong on her driving exam. That’s fine and dandy. But you know what, the girl’s taken plenty of tests in her life. But my question is; how many damn things has she ever driven before?
She has a bike. I know she can ride a bike because I taught her to ride a bike. But what about something mechanized?
As I scan the memory bank of my mind, I can’t recall ever letting her steer the car, or coast in a vacant parking lot. I asked her to drive the riding lawn mower once, to get the feel of something with a gas pedal and a steering wheel that had the immediate capacity to decapitate, but her response was: I don’t cut lawns!
So now she’s behind the wheel of $45,000 dollars worth of unblemished metal and electronics rocket sledding down the road and the wife is getting a little nervous.
“OK, there’s a stop sign coming up, so start braking.”
The wife says she waits a beat and the car seems to be accelerating. It’s like a scene out of invasion of the body snatchers. The young girl has a death grip on the wheel and her eyes transfixed on the road ahead. She is vapor locked on the future, and nothing can break her intense dedication to this moment.
“OK,” the wife says again. “There’s a stop sign up there, so start braking.”
The girl is driving through a worm hole and doesn’t answer. It’s as if her brain has been taken over by telepathic demons that command her to drive faster toward the intersection.
The wife becomes more animated. Like Japanese animation, she screams aloud, her lips not matching her voice:
“Time to hit the brakes.”
With all the theatrics of William Shatner pounding the CON, she hollers again.
“Hit the brakes. Hit the brakes. PUT ON THE BRAKES!!!”
The words enter the girl’s ears and slap her awake. With a somewhat surprised look on her face, the young driver crams on the brakes. The metallic beast begins to decelerate rapidly. The women’s heads are thrown foward. Dashboard Jesus comes rifiling back, striking the inside of the windshield with a thump that would make Judas nervous. The car doesn’t quite skid, but it definitely rolls aggressively through the stop sign and into the intersection.
I don’t think I can print what the wife is exclaiming at this point. It probably would look alot like: %$#%#^%#^%#!!!!!!!
I think if the wife’s head could rotate and spit pea soup, Dashboard Jesus would be taking a green bile bath at this point.
Luckily our neighborhood is quiet and there are no other cars coming. The problem is the road T bones at this intersection. You can only turn right or turn left. Straight is no longer an option.
WOOOPS.
Seems like straight is the option the young driver has chosen.
The large vehicle, though traveling much slower is still heading for the 8 inch high curb and the woods that lie beyond.
I imagine the wife propping her legs up on the mighty dash as she is trying to berth the car into stopping.
“STOPPPPPPPP!”
The massive electronically controlled mastodon of an SUV comes to a halt. If this was a scene from Thelma and Louise, there’d be smoke and dust and police choppers hovering over head.
Thankfully, there is none of that. Just some wide eyes and rushed breathing. Even Dashboard Jesus is breathing a little pensively.
The wife is frazzled as another car is now at the stop sign trying to turn left.
The SUV is 3/4 of the way into the intersection pointing right at the curb. The other driver at the stop sign probably thinks that the drunk teenager in the SUV is having a seizure or trying to run over squirrels.
“Crank the wheel all the way to the right,” the wife says. “Just tap the gas.”
That’s the way it sounded when the wife said it. This is the way it entered my teenage daughter’s brain:’
Why tap the gas when you can mash it to the floormat?
WOMP!
VROOOOOOM.
Apparently the teenager’s depth perception between tap and stomp is a few inches off.
The car lurches forward, fighting itself since the wheel is cranked completely to the right.
If this was a movie involving dragons and castles, the SUV would be a monster, expelling fire from the radiator. The lights would be blinking bright red and smoke would be swirling out of the engine compartment.
Luckilly, this terrible driving manuever is happening in sleepy ass Franklin, Tennessee.
“EASY EASY EASY” the wife shouts. Like words actually mean anything at this point.
The car powers through the 180 degree turn and begins heading down the next, THANK GOD, straight stretch of road.
“Straighten it out! Straighten it out.” the wife hollers. Dash-Board Jesus is seconding that motion with a sympathetic eye roll.
The teen’s hands are locked onto the steering wheel.
“Straighten it out!” The wife almost grabs the wheel, but the teen allows the beast to correct its course.
There is a moment of relief. No one is dead. Nothing has been destroyed. Police have witnessed nothing.
“Don’t hit any mailboxes,” The wife says trying not to sound like her own mother who was reportedly Hitler-like when it came to driver’s ed.
The wife tells me that under duress from her mom, the wife, as a teen, was ordered to park the family’s car in the garage. The wife says she repeatedly told the over bearing mother she didn’t feel comfortable with this manuever. The mother didn’t care telling her something matronly that assuaged the wife’s apprehension like sandpaper soothes a sunburn.
OK.
As the wife explains it, she accelerates the family Cadillac into the garage like a torpedo. Brake? Accelerator? What’s the difference.
WAM!
The Caddy comes to a stop only because the car couldn’t move a beam that supported the house in the center of the garage.
Woops.
Yours truly had a teenage moment when I put my car into reverse and backed it up. Problem is, I confused the gas, the clutch and the brake.
BANG
Too late. I broke through a stucco wall that attached to the garage.
My dad was cool.
It is with this in mind that my daughter now is driving down toward my garage which necessitates a trek down a narrow driveway to the rear of the house. Then a big three point turn to turn the car completely around to go under the house.
The idea is to coast slowly into the garage till the windshield hits a decorated egg carton caterpillar that is hanging from the ceiling. The kindergarten project on a wire tells the driver that the rear of the vehicle is safely inside the garage, and you can put the Mastodon in park. The problem is, if you go to far, and trust me, the front end of this vehicle is longer than a scene from a Quentin Tarantino film, then it is easy to crush the refrigerator against the rear wall.
I’m told there were some tense moments, a little too much speed, a little too much braking, but all in all, the car entered the garage without any damage to human flesh, Fire breathing SUV, dry wall or Frigidaire.
Thank Goodness.
“How’d it go?” i ask my daughter when I get home.
“It went great,” she says without reservation.
“What about the stop sign?”
“No biggie,” she says chewing gum, her legs thrown over the side of the couch, tv remote in one hand, text messaging phone in the other.
Day 1 under her belt.
I immediately begin looking for my automobile insurance policy to see if running over a priest is covered.
I silently say the serenity prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
“When can I drive again dad?,” the teen suddenly hollers during a commercial break.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up like someone just turned 150 microwave ovens on High. I begin looking for the ant-acid as I answer sheepishly.
“Not tonight, baby, maybe tomorrow.”
“AHHHH Dad!!!!!”
Somewhere Dash-Board Jesus is wiping a nervous brow.
Tomorrow and Teen Drivers.
Now that’s crazy!