Driving Lesson

If there was anything that would have kept my husband and I from getting married it would have been him teaching me to drive. I grew up in the city and saw no need to have a car. My husband grew up in the suburbs and quite frankly was appalled at my lack of vehicular mobility. His father was equally puzzled at my not driving and bought me a car. A really big car. Really big. And wide. And baby blue, with lots of chrome. It was bigger than the bedroom I had for 23 years. Did I mention it was big? Ok so my fiance, soon to be husband decides it's high time I learned to drive. I had a license, if you ever have a lingering, uneasy feeling about the MVA it's probably deeply rooted in the fact that they gave me a license. What were they thinking? My best defense when I get into a "discussion" about my husband's driving is "I've never hit anything going forward". The only things I've ever hit were a tree (we have lots of trees, they blend in), my sons bike (it was little and laying on the ground) and our house (it's......it might have been raining, and it's ...yea, no defense on that one.) Ok so Jim comes to my house and tells me I'm going to drive the 25 miles to his house. I immmediately rule out anything involving the beltway or 95. So we head off on backroads in a car the size of a city block. Baby blue, lots of chrome. I was excited and terrified, a nice combination on a narrow road. So we're moving along, in retrospect, probably really slow. Jim is giving me instructions. They started out like "check your mirrors, keep your hands at 10 and 2, relax, enjoy." It sort of evolved after the first 10 minutes into," stop crossing over the double yellow line, 5 is not a safe driving speed outside of a school parking lot, stop weaving to the right trees are slapping me in the face, and my favorite, for the love of God don't kill us!!!" By the time we got about 15 minutes into my lesson, I was crying and he was writing his living will on a Burger King napkin. We had had discussions about religion, politics, and sports. We agreed on how to raise our future children, I let him pick an Elvis song as our first dance at our wedding, but that 25 mile drive almost did us in. Finally, sometime much, much later we get to his apartment. Did I mention that somewhere between, check your mirrors and the living will, Jim told me he had to go to the bathroom. I apparantly had also forgotten. I pull into the parking lot and I begin my first quest for the perfect parking space. I start circling, and circling and circling, and Jim starts to lose it. He started out just sort of reminding me that he has to go. I found a spot! I start to pull in but it wasn't really straight, maybe I should try again. And again. And again. I pulled in, I pulled out. Maybe a bigger spot. Maybe I should practice backing in. By this time Jim is looking at me like I'am insane. He had that high squeaky voice people get when they just can't believe what they are seeing. "What are you doing?" Parking, duh. He had had enough, he jumped out of the car and made a run for the apartment. You'd think he'd appreciate the close parking spot but, no. I knew he didn't appreciate the good spot when he came running back out of the building, across the parking lot. I was still pulling in and pulling out when he got to me. He had indeed made it across the parking lot, down the steps and through the hall. Unfortunatly, I had the keys to his apartment. I was just pulling out again when he took the keys out of the ignition. He had a look on his face that I bet sharks see on people's faces before they attack. Fear, shock and pure disbelief. He was a blur as he crossed the parking lot. I got out of the car, not truly happy with the parking. I'm thinking, as soon as Jim is talking to me again , I'm gonna move it.