Wednesday, March 24, 2010

But Officer, He MADE Me!

I’m generally not all that much of a risk taker. I enjoy the sports pools and the occasional small wager, of course, but when it comes to exposing life and limb to potential harm, well, my body’s broken down enough as it is. I try not to invite trouble in to my living room, if you know what I mean.

Sunday, though, was a whopper of an exception. The Live Acorn is coming up on that age at which she is legally eligible to obtain a driver’s license. She seems to focus mainly on that aspect of it, and downplay the veto power held by the EMDAMOTLA and me. It’s highly unlikely that the veto power will be wielded, however, as the phrase “ARE YOU CRAZY? SHE CAN DRIVE HERSELF AROUND!” is used quite often, and with no lack of vigor or excitement, I might add, by one of her parents*.

As I was resigned to the inevitable, and also knowing that showing up to driver’s training without at least 1,000 miles under your belt is just embarrassing, for both parent and child, off we went on Sunday to toodle around a parking lot for a bit. In an awesome display of my brilliance and forethought, I chose the parking lot outside of where I work, which is a government agency that deals with felons, and occasionally has incidents of vandalism during off-business hours, and which consequently is frequently visited by various law enforcement agencies driving through.

I’m a sharpie, alright.

Luckily, nothing came of that. We did have the following conversation, however:

Dead Acorn: Are you planning on doing some traveling abroad sometime soon after you get your license?

Live Acorn: Umm … no … what are you talking about?

Dead Acorn: Well, from the lane you’re currently in, I would assume you’re practicing for driving in Jolly Olde England.

Live Acorn: Shut up.

She got a little excited when I told her to pull out of the parking lot and on to the street for about 100 yards, and pull back in at another entrance, but all went swimmingly with that maneuver. A little confidence can be detrimental, though, as we all know, and in retrospect, my subsequent decision to just have her drive all the way back to the EMDAMOTLA’s house (a couple of miles on city streets) was probably a bit irresponsible. Despite arriving home with damage to neither car nor passengers, I'll probably leave that off of my application for Father Of The Year.

On the other hand, SHE CAN DRIVE HERSELF AROUND! is something of a persuasive argument.

* It's already been pointed out that I will soon have a permanent designated driver, by many, MANY people, so just save it.

1 comment:

The Guitarman said...

The wife went through the agony of watching him drive off the first time when my son got his license. The only agony I experienced was writing the check to the insurance company.