Driving with Katie

or,

Where’s the Clairol #117 and pass me my nerve pills!


At first, it went well. She listened. She did what she was told, braking here, putting her signal on now, staying on her side of the road. And as she learned and the praises were heaped upon her, her confidence grew. And grew. And grew. Until she was the self-styled Princess of Power (steering).

My first experience in Driver’s Ed, post-high school, was teaching my oldest son, who figured ‘hey, I’ve played enough NASCAR 2000 – I don’t NEED lessons.’ And I had to force him to drive. Our state requires a minimum number of hours behind the wheel, certified by a parent or legal guardian, in order to move from permit to license. It’s ridiculously low, like 50 or something, but I still felt perjurious when I signed the statement. Nevertheless, he passed his driving test. And I’ll give him points for that, because he had to drive in rush hour school traffic and they were gone at least 20 minutes. For my test, back before seat belt laws, I had to drive around the block. Literally. One square residential block. Four right turns. Had they been left, I’d be qualified for Bristol.

Lately, the Princess has lost some of her Will to Drive. It’s too cold in the mornings. She wants to watch a movie en route. She doesn’t feel like it. She did deign to drive home yesterday. With one hand on the steering wheel and the other hand alternately flipping her hair around and pointing at “bad” drivers, we careened through the evening traffic. Wherever she turned her head, there went the steering wheel. We did not maintain our lane. We ran up on other cars and came to a screeching halt. We rousted pedestrians. At last we got home and I dug my fingers out of the armrest. I followed the youngest two into the house and was dumbfounded to realize: I have to do this Two. More. Times.