Thursday, March 31, 2011

Driving me CRAZY....the first in a series

Because....dum dum dum.....my darling daughter is in DRIVER'S ED and I cannot wait to bore you with all of the ridiculous and traumatic details.

For example:

She had a SIX page worksheet that she had to complete this weekend, full of questions about the vehicle she would be driving.  (ahem....that would be MY vehicle, for the record, since her father, conveniently, drives a cantankerous, air bag-free, rattle-trap piece of metal....whose name is Georgia, btw, with whom he is inappropriately in-love, but more on that later.)

Out we went to my car, where she sat in the drivers seat, and I in the passenger.  She worked her way through the questions with my help and a little leafing through the manual.  I felt gratified that I knew most of the answers already, but, as it turns out, there were a few features on my car about which I was heretofore unaware!  Huh!

(Do you think I set a bad example by drinking a glass of wine in the car while she undertook this activity?  Nah, me neither.)

Last night she said to me "Oh!  I hope you don't mind, but I forged your signature on something for drivers ed." 

"Well, I don't know, maybe I DO mind!  What was it?"

"Just a form saying that you and I had changed a tire on your car together, you know, took the old one off, put on the spare, put the new one on......"

This is called a Parental Catch-22......where you are forced to positively reinforce negative behavior.

"Uh......well.......sure, yeah, I guess that's okay."

"Yeah, I figured it was.  Turns out all the other kids forged their parents signatures, too."

Right.  Because, really?  Who changes a tire anymore?  (Other than my husband that is.)

I am impressed, however, with both the quantity and quality of work that they make these kids do now, and I'm a huge fan of graduated licensing.

I keep telling her that there's no hurry.  Really.  Faced with the reality of being a passenger in my own car for REALZ......the alternative of driving her to and fro is suddenly much less irksome.

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