Tragic Drives or
For the love of god - get out of the way!

One of the unfortunate side-effects of adult-hood is that you have to become responsible. I'd set out to lead a life of playing video games, watching DVDs and eating chocolate cake for breakfast. Next thing I know I've a job, a wife and a child. How the heck did I manage that? So I find myself doing all the things I'd never wanted to do - shovelling snow in the winter, eating off of plates and not directly from the pot, and learning to drive.

Yep - I'd managed to avoid this whole driving thing for close to a dozen years - and could have quite happily lived out my days without ever being behind the wheel of a vehicle. When I was still in highschool, I had a girlfriend who had a number of vehicle related troubles. If the car wasn't getting bashed in one accident or another, it was just disintegrating from sheer old age. $100 repair bill. $250 repair bill. Oil change. Gas. $1100 repair bill. New altenator. New tires. Gas. Oil change.

Now, I'll admit that I'm a tightwad. Cheap as they come. When I have a party, you not only bring your own scotch, you bring your own rocks. When I hand out candy at Halloween, I collect addresses so I can invoice later. My pennies have bruises from where I've pinched them. You get the point. Well the thought of having a money pit of a car, like my girlfriend had, was just plain frightening.

But even with no intention to own a car, I may have gone for my license, even if only to have a piece of photo ID. I would have gone ahead, were it not for the 78 Buick that plowed into the passenger side of my parent's car and left me with a shattered clavicle. That pretty much settled it for me. Driving is unsafe. I'll take the bus thank you very much.

Until now.

You see, kids need to be driven places. Pick 'em up at daycare. Take 'em to soccer practice. Race up north to go camping. Whisk 'em over to the doctor's office. A bus just isn't going to cut it.

So I've enrolled in a driver's ed. course and have begun the process of getting my license. I hate it. I mean, I really, really hate it. Every minute behind the wheel scares the hell out of me. I worry about being hit. I worry about hitting someone else. I worry about what I should have seen but didn't. I'd be screaming the whole time, but I think my driver instructer lower my score for that.

But I'm an adult now. It's time for me to be responsible and to overcome my fears. And so I'm little by little learning to drive.

But screw it - I'm still going to have chocolate cake for breakfast.