ManDay Monday–Driving
Sunday, March 29th, 2009(Sorry for the lack of posting lately. I’m trying folks! I’ll have some news coming up soon, but until then, I’m trying to get back on track!)
I’ll admit it. In general, guys are better drivers than girls. There are absolutely exceptions to that rule. But I’ve found that the majority of the time, the rule holds true. Maybe it’s just how our brains are wired. Maybe something to do with hand/eye/foot coordination?
Wanna hear a story that typifies this rule? (And don’t you love the word typifies?) Well of course you do! That’s why you’re here, right?
When I was 15, I began taking a driver’s ed class through my high school. Coach Wilkerson was our teacher. That man terrified me. He was cruel. He made you parallel park between the principal and vice principal’s cars. He taught you how to back into a parking spot at the police station. He quizzed you on driving rules as you whizzed down the highway. But the worst was the last day of class. It was the thing that high school legends are made of.
I went first on that fateful day. Charles, my driving partner sat in the backseat, calm and collected. I sat in the front, with Coach Wilkerson at my side. He had the radio tuned to a local country music station. I drove to the top of a hill, a line of cones dotting the parking lot below me. Coach Wilkerson reached over and slowly lifted the armrest that separated us.
I put it back down.
He lifted it.
I put it back down.
He lifted it, and threatened to fail me.
I left it up.
He edged nearer, his foot moving closer to the gas. Suddenly the car lurched down the hill, his foot mashed down on the pedal. I screamed, trying desperately to dodge the cones in front of me. Thump thump. Cones flew out from underneath the car.
“THAT COULD HAVE BEEN A CHILD!” yelled Coach Wilkerson.
“I DIDN’T MEAN TO KILL IT!” I yelled back, my hands shaking on the steering wheel.
“That was just to show you that you don’t have control when you drive too fast,” Coach Wilkerson said calmly, turning up the radio so he could hear Garth Brooks over my ragged breathing.
Charles and I then switched seats. I walked around as Charles smiled sympathetically and I righted the crumpled children cones that surrounded the car. I sulked in the backseat as Charles effortlessly drove the car between the cones. He didn’t kill one innocent child. Coach Wilkerson patted him on the shoulder, and the two harmonized to the closing lines of “Unanswered Prayers.”
At least, that’s how I remember it.
I ended up with a B in driver’s ed, and I got my learner’s permit a few weeks later.
And traffic cones still give me nightmares.





The title of this blog post was my shout earlier this weekend. I’ve been having a lot of “wow, I’m an idiot” moments lately, and I thought I would share them with you, dear reader. But I’m not stupid. I swear.













So, the other day, I had a bad day. I mean really bad. There were some tears. Some yelling. Some bottling up emotions. Some cursing. It was just an all-around bad day.