Drive to your death
The surefire way to lend your friendship a death blow is to teach your friend to drive. The more the complexity of the vehicle, better the chances at destroying your friendship. But be forewarned that destruction is not limited to mere friendships but blood is rendered thinner than distilled water after a single day of attempting to teach driving. My dad was smart enough to back off after a weary frustrated morning he spent screaming at me and promptly handed me over to his driver for future lessons. It still beats me why the poor driver quit his job a week after I learnt driving. I have already repaid his debt by passing on my hard-earned knowledge of the wheel to future generations, some not really in the future. I gave up teaching my mom to drive the Kinetic Honda after she let go off the handle to shoo off pedestrians instead of honking. The way that story ended is a story by itself.
It just something about teaching driving that frustrates you no end and makes you scream your lungs out like a banshee in distress. You fondly wish for an alternate set of brakes on the passenger side as your protégé zooms down the road and brakes inches from the swank BMW in the front. Screaming and giving the learner an earful of your choicest expletives would be considered a natural human reaction in other circumstances. But the fact that you do all the screaming while being pressed against the windshield and blessing the inventor of the seat belt.
The parallel parking lessons draws out the final straw. The turn of the wheel and the direction of your car are so ingrained in your mind that you cannot think why the protégé would even think otherwise. The limit of your patience and behavior etiquette is finally breached when you are dragged with the car after a teeny-weeny “slip of mind” of mistaking the accelerator for the brake. The fact that this may seem funny to the bystanders and other friends doesn’t really help matters. Other rules of friendship don’t matter when you are learning to drive. I will believe you when you tell me that you honestly forgot to tell me that much-awaited phone message but don’t expect that trust to last when you are learning to drive. I trust you; believe you and the works but it will be days or even months before I can comfortably doze off while you are driving.
Bottomline, I don’t think I am a good teacher. I simply lack the patience and restraint that you need. Sigh! Why do I even try?
“Drive to your death” [Short URL: http://www.ipatrix.com/?p=215] was published Monday, June 7th, 2004 at 7:26 pm by Patrix, filed under Personal. Both comments and linkbacks are closed.
