The Fast and the Frightened

Hello Guys and Dolls!

I’m coming to you live from my parent’s living room! I’ve come home for the weekend to be fed, watered and to cuddle two very hyper puppers.

It’s time for another anecdote! Today’s topic? Driving Miss Lucy.

That title’s actually a bit misleading; this story is all about me learning to drive myself.

Now, can you guess how many times it took me to pass my driving test? A grand total of seven. Or six… I may have lost count.

In fairness I was moving around during this time. I failed about four times with the first instructor who gave me such bad anxiety that after one memorable driving lesson, I opened a beer at ten in the morning.

He also tried to blame me for being backended and pushed onto a roundabout (while he had dual control) but that’s a story for another time.

But I have become famous in my family for being pretty decent at driving but perpetually failing my test.

Let’s review the highlights shall we?

In no particular order (because I don’t remember what order they were in), during one miserable test I failed with no minors and one major fault because I gestured for someone to go past me while I was reversing around a corner.

I also nearly crashed during one test. Yeah, that one was bad. I was turning out of a junction and some knobhead had parked opposite it, and in my nervousness I overshot the distance and missed fully crashing into the car by around a centimetre.

The worst part was that I figured that maybe driving in a car I wasn’t used to was throwing me during tests, so instead of the dual controlled instructor’s car, I decided to use my scrappy little Clio. Without dual controls. Of course, it was no use telling the examiner that as he kicked the air trying to hit the brake on his side as I sped towards his certain death.

I’m sure I’ve taken years off that poor examiner’s life.

The worst part was we were only five minutes into the test, and he made me do the entire thing even though we both knew I’d failed!

I eventually found a lovely driving instructor who I finally passed with. She was an absolute legend.

That driving examiner was an ex-military man who was notoriously curt. In my first test he barely spoke, by my final test he was asking me how each of my friends were by name. I always joke that I should be on his Christmas card list by now.

So let this be a lesson. If at first you fail, try, try not to kill your driving instructor with your determination.

Happy National Bed Month! Beds really do deserve their own month.