2006-04-14 - 9:56 a.m. Student Driver With the up coming wedding one must relive a lot of ghost of ones past. I mostly call these ghosts�family. The fact remains that when you get a bunch of people together that don�t know each other it much more likely that there is going to be conflict and embarrassment. These are facts. There is no way to possible avoid this, there is just ignoring the problem, diffusing the problem, and minimizing the damage. Of course it makes it even worse when these people were there when running around naked was cute. *insert one line joke here about how that previous was more recent than my childhood* One of the ghosts I have to face comes from my mother. She is a kind woman and has battled breast cancer and I�ve said some very nice things about her. However, I am about to reveal something. As an only child of a fairly conservative parent I led a fairly sheltered life. My TV and movie viewing was restricted. Were the movie borderline my mother would watch it first and judge if I was mature enough to view it. Movies I wasn�t allowed to watch. Gremlins (on tape), Gremlins 2, Problem Child, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. (due to the heart taking out scene. My mother felt it would disturb me). You know what disturbed me? Bambi. Somehow I got to watch Jaws. I had a waterbed. Now THAT was an epic nightmare. But none of this compares to my mom�s fear of me driving. When I was learning how to drive my mother came up with the idea of having a magnet made up to put on the car that said �student driver�. Let me repeat that -- A big white and red magnet that said �Student Driver�. I might have had less harassment if it had said �Sped� or �Window Licker� Its bad enough learning to drive in those student driver cars with the brakes on both your side and the teacher�s side, but now I�m driving in my regular car with my mom with a magnet that said �Student Driver� Do you understand what that means! Everyone behind me would beep at me and my mother would tell me to pull to the side to let them pass! This was during my entire learner permit period. Meanwhile when I got my actual license, a deal was made with me. �If you want to drive our car, the magnet stays on.� They wanted me to drive around with friends in the car with a student driver sticker on? Park at school with that thing? I was harassed by my peers, and by other drivers. It was a red and white bullseye that said �horrifc driver� alert. My mother felt it would give people fair warning of my skills and also keep me safer. I would stop at the end of the street and take it off. I�d try and forget it in the house after I started taking it in. My mother was like �if one of our friends sees our car without that magnet, we�ll take away your driving rights.� It was a chance worth taking. Sure � I wouldn�t be able to drive�but isn�t not driving a lot better than driving in hell? I for one, think it is. | |||||||||||
