Drive My Car

For everyone following my possessed ring saga, you will be glad to know that since I threw it away, nothing bad has happened. Silly, superstitious, whatever you want to call it, I made the right decision to toss that thing in the trash.

Several people suggested that I give it away. Not that I couldn’t think of a few people who probably deserved it, but I decided that I couldn’t (in good conscience anyway) “gift” my devil ring to anyone. I could probably eliminate a lot of stress by re-gifting demonic claddagh rings I’ve bought for myself, but I’m far too nice for my own good sometimes.

Since I trashed the ring, I have been offered a website job, won a poker tournament (a very small one, but it's a start!) and the biggie...Oldest Daughter got a perfect score on her instructional driving permit test at the DMV.

As she clutched that driving permit in her hand, jumped up and down and screeched “Let’s go driving!”, I have to admit I was a wee bit “beep beep beep beep yeah” kind of nervous. Could this child who just last year decided to “save time” by cooking a pizza on a plastic cutting board in my brand new (only six days old) oven really be ready to drive a car? They don’t use any kind of driving simulators anymore in Driver’s Ed here, either. They go to five classes, learn the rules of the road and then turn them over to their parents to get some experience before they actually take them out in the driving school cars.

Fabulous! I thought the insurance premiums were high. For what I’m paying for Driver’s Ed, they could at least take the kid out the first time they drive, don’t you think?

I didn’t think it would be wise to have a few tequila shooters before we went out driving, so I just bit the bullet, made sure my seat belt was tight and let her loose in a relatively empty parking lot. The back end of my car is already a mess and I already have whiplash, so I figured as long as she didn’t hit anything with the front end, she couldn’t do much harm.

I have to say I was surprised! She had never driven before and she handled the car beautifully. After an hour or so in the parking lot, I decided she was ready to tackle some side streets and we drove around the neighborhood for another hour. Only one asshole honked at her for being at the stop sign maybe a second longer than she needed to be.

I did have one “life flash before your eyes” moment, though. We were on a side street, at a light waiting to cross a very busy street. She was nervous about doing that and I assured her that she could do it, told her when the light turns green and you’re sure no one is running the red from the opposite directions, just go on straight through. She did everything absolutely perfect until she was halfway through the intersection and some other asshole decided to turn left right in front of her. I withheld my horror movie screaming and she stopped just fine, let him go and continued on albeit a little confused about “right of way”.

I haven’t taught her how to “give the finger” yet. That comes in today’s lesson :)

Despite the fact that Little Daughter shook in the back seat the entire time Oldest Daughter was driving (hey, I told her she should stay home!) I have to say I was very impressed with her driving skills, especially for the first time out. I guess all of those driving games I’ve bought for the X-Box and Playstation 2 over the years weren’t a waste of money after all!

I made her a little video to document her first day driving and I thought I’d share it with anyone who’s interested. And, just in case you are in the greater Chicagoland area, you might want to steer clear of any black Kia Sedonas you come across for a while :)