Baby, you can drive my car!
I keep remembering a family vacation we took when my kids were three and one. It was a Club Med vacation that we had saved up for forever, to Punta Cana, where the beaches are truly pink.
The allure of the Club Med vacation was that we could spend part of the time all together as a family and part of the time alone as grownups while the kids went to Kids’ Club or whatever it was called. When your kids are babies and toddlers, you don’t ever really get any adult alone time. And we really wanted some of that.
I remember walking up to the playground, and seeing the kids all lined up and playing on the slide. I heard a little girl call out, “M, M, save me! Save me!” My three year old son moved forward and came to her rescue. It struck me that these young children in their play were modeling the story of the ages: the hero coming to rescue the damsel in distress. My son seemed to take it all in stride. While the little girl sounded panicked and desperate, almost shrill, he moved slowly, confidently, and with purpose to “save” her.
It was as if he were doing his own thing and all of a sudden, out of the blue, someone was calling on him, asking for help, and he felt it was part of his job, his duty to step forward and assist. Because he could. Kind of like, “Oh, all right. I am really over here doing something else that is important to me, but if you need my help, here I am!”
Today my older son took his driver’s test.
Which he passed with flying colors.
And I had no doubt that he would.
But….
I, the mom, could not sleep very well last night, worried about it. Dreaming about it. I actually dreamed that he passed the test just fine. That wasn’t what I was worried about. I was worried that I would oversleep and we would be late and he would miss his time slot. His driving instructor had told us, “You need to be there 15 minutes early, and then 5 minutes ahead of time, you need to drive up in front of the building and have all your paperwork ready to go. They have different appointments every 15 minutes, so if you are late, you might miss yours.”
OK.
Aye, aye!
My son’s appointment was for 11. I figured it would take us about half an hour to get there, all things going smoothly. I was sure that all things would not go smoothly, so we should allow some cushion time. I figured if we left at 10:15, we would have plenty of time. Which we did. I think, actually, we left before 10:15 and got there around 10:30. The DMV site is about 15 miles away, up the local highway. Not an interstate, but one of those local highways that has stoplight after stoplight, strip malls, the whole nine yards. The speed limit changes from 40 to 45 to 55 and back and forth all the way there and back. I had my son drive us there (not something I was wild about, but the driver instructor had let him do that on the very first day he took him out driving, so I figured it would be bad form if I didn’t).
So, my son drove us there. Did a great job! All was fine and dandy. Most of what makes me nervous when we are driving, aside from the fact that he insists on driving with one hand, is THE OTHER GUY. Other drivers. You never know what other people are going to do. I see it every day on my commute downtown to work and back, and it is something I cannot control.
Of course, there is very little in this life I can control, so….
Anyway, we got there early, which was fine, and parked. Unfortunately, the driver tester dude was about half an hour behind schedule, so we had to wait extra, extra long. I personally found this very painful and stressful. I was already nervous and stressed out, but trying not to show it, because I didn’t want to make my son nervous and stressed out, too. He started telling me, in minute detail, about some science fiction book he had been reading. He seemed totally non-plussed.
I kept turning around, craning my neck, to see if a space had opened up in front of the driver testing building for us to go ahead and pull up, as we had been instructed to do. I had all of our paperwork in my hand: my son’s learner’s permit, my driver’s license, my registration, my proof of insurance, and this form I had to sign saying my son had driven 50 hours of supervised time. My hand was sweating, so the learner’s permit on top was starting to wilt. The cars were not moving. In fact, the same two cars that were there when we arrived, were still sitting there.
At least it wasn’t raining, I thought to myself.
“Aren’t you nervous?” I turned to my son, finally.
He looked at me, his eyes squinting up, you know, that look that teenagers always give their parents.
Like you are deranged.
“It’s not really in my nature to be nervous,” he said. And he was serious.
And it is really true. It truly is not within his nature to be nervous.
Of course, I am sitting there, a nervous wreck. I had woken up early, after a fitful sleep, and had been experiencing severe gastrointestinal distress ever since. I could hardly wait for the driver tester dude to take my son on his test so I could flee to the bathroom.
I had a hard time understanding how my son could not be nervous. But really, I do not think he was. I am not sure why I was nervous. Verily, I thought my son would do just fine on his test. If anything went wrong, it would be a fluke, a silly mistake, a trick.
Maybe it was because I was having flashbacks to when I took the driver’s test. It was at this same DMV site, and the test course was the same. I had failed my first time, because after going through the entire test just fine, the tester had said, “OK. You’re done. Just pull up in front of the building.” And so I did. Only I drove right through the final stop sign. The tester guy said, “You just drove through that stop sign. You fail.” Of course, silly me had thought (since the whole test course was fake anyway and not on a real street): he said I was done, I don’t have to play this silly game any more. He thinks I know how to drive, he just wants me to return to the test building. Fine.
But, no!
So sad, too bad, dear dad. You fail!
Plus, there was that whole parallel parking factor. I guess I had to parallel park to pass my test, whenever I did eventually pass it on the second go round, but I have to tell you, I avoid parallel parking like the plague!
I am terrible at it, it makes me nervous, I would never do it in traffic. My idea of parallel parking is when there are all these open spaces and you can just drive into one of them. I would NEVER choose to park between two parked vehicles. Ever. Just wouldn’t do it.
Which made me think that if I were taking the driver’s test this morning, I might very well fail it.
Even though I have been driving legally for thirty years!
Finally, the cars in front of us started moving up. The tester came up to us with his clipboard and asked if my son was my son. He checked off my son’s name. Then he told us to make sure we had all of our paperwork in order and informed us that he was running thirty minutes behind schedule. We watched him as he tested the drivers in the two cars in front of us.
I watched as he brought the first car back around to the end of the test; clearly the driver had failed. I looked closely at the driver tester guy as he methodically checked things off on his clipboard. He was white-haired, around sixty, kind of looked like a former football coach or high school gym teacher.
I turned to my son.
“Oh, my God!” I said. “I think that is the same guy who gave me my driver’s test.”
My son looked at me, skeptical, but not dismissing it out of hand.
I was suddenly bombarded by flashbacks.
PTSD.
I broke out in a sweat.
The paperwork in my even sweatier hands was starting to disintegrate.
My son’s eyebrow raised. “You really think so?” he asked.
No, no, of course it was impossible.
I had taken my driver’s test thirty years ago, and the driver tester dude had been old then.
He would have to be like a hundred years old now.
My son chuckled. “Wouldn’t it be funny if this guy was the son of the driver tester you had?”
I looked at my son. This was no time to be funny! This was serious.
To make a long story short, my son passed the test with no problems whatsoever.
He said the only thing the driver tester guy corrected him on was driving with one hand.
Aha! Hadn’t I told him that???
My son explained: “I prefer to drive with one hand because it relaxes me and I drive better.”
(Never mind that I often drive with one hand!)
The fact of the matter is that as the parent sitting in the passenger seat, I have to consciously prevent myself from stomping my right foot down on an imaginary brake. And sometimes I think my son is too far over to the right of the road, and it makes me nervous.
And on the way home, he ran a red light. Well, in all fairness, it was one of those cases where you are not sure if you should speed up and go through a yellow light or slow down and stop early. I think he made the wrong choice: speed up and go through. But I think he did it because he has only been driving for like three minutes and doesn’t have the experience to know when you should do which.
Of course, if he had been driving with both hands, I am sure he would have… still run the red light!
All I know is that when I got home, I had to go take a nap! I was totally exhausted and drained from the whole experience.
I was so glad my son passed, which I really thought he would do, because the thought of having to drive all the way back out there to the DMV and do this all over again was, frankly, just more than I could bear.
I cannot think about how I have a second son who will be going through all of this next year.
I will think about that tomorrow.
For, afterall, tomorrow is another day....
Beep beep'm beep beep yeah!
The allure of the Club Med vacation was that we could spend part of the time all together as a family and part of the time alone as grownups while the kids went to Kids’ Club or whatever it was called. When your kids are babies and toddlers, you don’t ever really get any adult alone time. And we really wanted some of that.
I remember walking up to the playground, and seeing the kids all lined up and playing on the slide. I heard a little girl call out, “M, M, save me! Save me!” My three year old son moved forward and came to her rescue. It struck me that these young children in their play were modeling the story of the ages: the hero coming to rescue the damsel in distress. My son seemed to take it all in stride. While the little girl sounded panicked and desperate, almost shrill, he moved slowly, confidently, and with purpose to “save” her.
It was as if he were doing his own thing and all of a sudden, out of the blue, someone was calling on him, asking for help, and he felt it was part of his job, his duty to step forward and assist. Because he could. Kind of like, “Oh, all right. I am really over here doing something else that is important to me, but if you need my help, here I am!”
Today my older son took his driver’s test.
Which he passed with flying colors.
And I had no doubt that he would.
But….
I, the mom, could not sleep very well last night, worried about it. Dreaming about it. I actually dreamed that he passed the test just fine. That wasn’t what I was worried about. I was worried that I would oversleep and we would be late and he would miss his time slot. His driving instructor had told us, “You need to be there 15 minutes early, and then 5 minutes ahead of time, you need to drive up in front of the building and have all your paperwork ready to go. They have different appointments every 15 minutes, so if you are late, you might miss yours.”
OK.
Aye, aye!
My son’s appointment was for 11. I figured it would take us about half an hour to get there, all things going smoothly. I was sure that all things would not go smoothly, so we should allow some cushion time. I figured if we left at 10:15, we would have plenty of time. Which we did. I think, actually, we left before 10:15 and got there around 10:30. The DMV site is about 15 miles away, up the local highway. Not an interstate, but one of those local highways that has stoplight after stoplight, strip malls, the whole nine yards. The speed limit changes from 40 to 45 to 55 and back and forth all the way there and back. I had my son drive us there (not something I was wild about, but the driver instructor had let him do that on the very first day he took him out driving, so I figured it would be bad form if I didn’t).
So, my son drove us there. Did a great job! All was fine and dandy. Most of what makes me nervous when we are driving, aside from the fact that he insists on driving with one hand, is THE OTHER GUY. Other drivers. You never know what other people are going to do. I see it every day on my commute downtown to work and back, and it is something I cannot control.
Of course, there is very little in this life I can control, so….
Anyway, we got there early, which was fine, and parked. Unfortunately, the driver tester dude was about half an hour behind schedule, so we had to wait extra, extra long. I personally found this very painful and stressful. I was already nervous and stressed out, but trying not to show it, because I didn’t want to make my son nervous and stressed out, too. He started telling me, in minute detail, about some science fiction book he had been reading. He seemed totally non-plussed.
I kept turning around, craning my neck, to see if a space had opened up in front of the driver testing building for us to go ahead and pull up, as we had been instructed to do. I had all of our paperwork in my hand: my son’s learner’s permit, my driver’s license, my registration, my proof of insurance, and this form I had to sign saying my son had driven 50 hours of supervised time. My hand was sweating, so the learner’s permit on top was starting to wilt. The cars were not moving. In fact, the same two cars that were there when we arrived, were still sitting there.
At least it wasn’t raining, I thought to myself.
“Aren’t you nervous?” I turned to my son, finally.
He looked at me, his eyes squinting up, you know, that look that teenagers always give their parents.
Like you are deranged.
“It’s not really in my nature to be nervous,” he said. And he was serious.
And it is really true. It truly is not within his nature to be nervous.
Of course, I am sitting there, a nervous wreck. I had woken up early, after a fitful sleep, and had been experiencing severe gastrointestinal distress ever since. I could hardly wait for the driver tester dude to take my son on his test so I could flee to the bathroom.
I had a hard time understanding how my son could not be nervous. But really, I do not think he was. I am not sure why I was nervous. Verily, I thought my son would do just fine on his test. If anything went wrong, it would be a fluke, a silly mistake, a trick.
Maybe it was because I was having flashbacks to when I took the driver’s test. It was at this same DMV site, and the test course was the same. I had failed my first time, because after going through the entire test just fine, the tester had said, “OK. You’re done. Just pull up in front of the building.” And so I did. Only I drove right through the final stop sign. The tester guy said, “You just drove through that stop sign. You fail.” Of course, silly me had thought (since the whole test course was fake anyway and not on a real street): he said I was done, I don’t have to play this silly game any more. He thinks I know how to drive, he just wants me to return to the test building. Fine.
But, no!
So sad, too bad, dear dad. You fail!
Plus, there was that whole parallel parking factor. I guess I had to parallel park to pass my test, whenever I did eventually pass it on the second go round, but I have to tell you, I avoid parallel parking like the plague!
I am terrible at it, it makes me nervous, I would never do it in traffic. My idea of parallel parking is when there are all these open spaces and you can just drive into one of them. I would NEVER choose to park between two parked vehicles. Ever. Just wouldn’t do it.
Which made me think that if I were taking the driver’s test this morning, I might very well fail it.
Even though I have been driving legally for thirty years!
Finally, the cars in front of us started moving up. The tester came up to us with his clipboard and asked if my son was my son. He checked off my son’s name. Then he told us to make sure we had all of our paperwork in order and informed us that he was running thirty minutes behind schedule. We watched him as he tested the drivers in the two cars in front of us.
I watched as he brought the first car back around to the end of the test; clearly the driver had failed. I looked closely at the driver tester guy as he methodically checked things off on his clipboard. He was white-haired, around sixty, kind of looked like a former football coach or high school gym teacher.
I turned to my son.
“Oh, my God!” I said. “I think that is the same guy who gave me my driver’s test.”
My son looked at me, skeptical, but not dismissing it out of hand.
I was suddenly bombarded by flashbacks.
PTSD.
I broke out in a sweat.
The paperwork in my even sweatier hands was starting to disintegrate.
My son’s eyebrow raised. “You really think so?” he asked.
No, no, of course it was impossible.
I had taken my driver’s test thirty years ago, and the driver tester dude had been old then.
He would have to be like a hundred years old now.
My son chuckled. “Wouldn’t it be funny if this guy was the son of the driver tester you had?”
I looked at my son. This was no time to be funny! This was serious.
To make a long story short, my son passed the test with no problems whatsoever.
He said the only thing the driver tester guy corrected him on was driving with one hand.
Aha! Hadn’t I told him that???
My son explained: “I prefer to drive with one hand because it relaxes me and I drive better.”
(Never mind that I often drive with one hand!)
The fact of the matter is that as the parent sitting in the passenger seat, I have to consciously prevent myself from stomping my right foot down on an imaginary brake. And sometimes I think my son is too far over to the right of the road, and it makes me nervous.
And on the way home, he ran a red light. Well, in all fairness, it was one of those cases where you are not sure if you should speed up and go through a yellow light or slow down and stop early. I think he made the wrong choice: speed up and go through. But I think he did it because he has only been driving for like three minutes and doesn’t have the experience to know when you should do which.
Of course, if he had been driving with both hands, I am sure he would have… still run the red light!
All I know is that when I got home, I had to go take a nap! I was totally exhausted and drained from the whole experience.
I was so glad my son passed, which I really thought he would do, because the thought of having to drive all the way back out there to the DMV and do this all over again was, frankly, just more than I could bear.
I cannot think about how I have a second son who will be going through all of this next year.
I will think about that tomorrow.
For, afterall, tomorrow is another day....
Beep beep'm beep beep yeah!
posted by delta at 11:11 PM
1 Comments:
"It's not really in my nature to be nervous." I LOVE him.
Post a Comment
<< Home