Today was a day for history folks, a day I will tell my children about for years and years to come.....That's right, today was my very first driving lesson....And I got to do it in my Dad's purple pick-up truck "Nemeses". I honestly thought that I would do horribly, seeing as I am the most accident prone kid I know, and that I would totally smash up the truck I have loved since childhood. But this was not the case. I actually did pretty freaking well! I even got up to 20 miles per hour. Granted, I was in a highschool parking lot, but hey, it's a start right? Anyway, it was all the basics today, turning, figuring out where everything was and learning how to use the petals.
I was expecting something like flying an airplane, so, while the truck was nerve wracking, it was a lot easier than I have expected. We drove forwards, did a few turns and circled the parking lot a bit and I thought that would be it. 5 minutes of driving and then heading home, but, my Dad had a challenge for me; line yourself up with the speed bump and drive right down the center. Unable to back down from a challenge, I went for it and, after a few failed attempts, nailed the sucker! It was amazing, let me tell you, I figured out where everything was from the hood of the car and just drove over. We did the whole speed bump thing for a few minutes, lining up and driving over. Again, I thought that's all Dad would let me do, but, again, he had a challenge. This time it was to drive down the middle of the parking lot, clipping the edge of the space lines on my left side. The reason for this being to figure out where lines were relative to the hood. After a bit of wheel twisting and checking, I was lined up and nailed it! Then, as expected, we did that for a while, did the right side with Dad leaning out the window and coaching me. It was awesome, purely awesome.
After about 30 minutes in one parking lot, Dad decided we would head to the next one. Me, knowing how great my Dad's truck is, put it in park and got ready to jump out in order for him to drive to the next one. But Dad didn't move, he kinda looked at me funny, trying to figure out just what it was that I was doing, but he just sat there calmly and told me to ease it out and head to the other parking lot.
I had no idea what to do or feel, I was honored of course that he trusted me that much, but the thought of getting in a little lane, passing a stop sign and turning into the parking lot was a scary one. So, with my Dad's constant advice of 'take it slow and easy', I turned into the lane, stopped for a random dude, and headed into the next parking lot without a problem. There we did a few more turns, lined up on speed bumps and learned with the gas petal for a bit before Dad decided it was time for another learning experience; parking. It wasn't a challenge this time, he just said "If you want to be daring, you can try parking a little." The words had just left his mouth when I started lining myself up and.....I NAILED IT! I was fully in on the first shot!! I little over with the front of the car, but not enough to really matter! Now that right there is a happy feeling! So, I parked a little more, got a little better, but the front hanging out was starting to bug me, so I headed for one with the curb. Dad decided that was a good idea and I slowly hit the curb and then looked around to see where everything was, had a talk with Dad about how things looked, etc. and I was at it again, driving, lining up, parking, etc.
Then came the fun part.
Dad took the wheel and we drove out of the parking lot and into something that I'm guessing is a drop off thing. It was a big stretch with a loop at the end, little tree island in the middle, and a small parking lot. It was time to learn how to do a 'round about'. I was nervous, of course, images of getting the truck stuck on a tree were going through my mind as I approached the little island, stopping for invisible people at the cross walk, but with Dad's advice of "take it slow and easy", I went for it and, after stopping to learn about knowing where the back of the car was relative to you in the drivers seat, turned in the little round about and didn't hit the curb once! YEAH! I did this a few more times, skipped going around the island once to just go into the parking lot, when Dad had another challenge for me; tight parking. Now, before I had had tons of room to slowly approach the spot and easy my way in, now I had not only a smaller parking lot but I wasn't allowed to get near the spaces behind me. "Pretend that in every one of those spaces is a prized Mercedes." He said, so, with that in mind, I lined up my spot and slid it in. Now, I had to go into the 'reserved for student of the month' place because, honestly, it was just too funny to pass up as far as I was concerned. This one was trickier, so I nailed it on the second try instead of the first but hey, that's still pretty good for day #1! So, there was more of the parking and the round abouts and, because Dad said it would be funny, I made an eight circle around the island.
Then, as we were about to head home for a victory dinner, came the moment to beat all moments......My Dad said "How about we try working with the gas and brake petals, go about 20mph?" My heart literally skipped a beat. The entire time I'd been going 6mph tops, and now I was being asked to go 20?!?! I wasn't scared so much as excited, Dad trusted me to go an actual speed in his truck and I wasn't about to let him down! So, with this mission playing through my mind, I went around the little tree island and lined myself up, smiling broadly at my father. He smiled back and said. "Hit it." I didn't really slam the gas, of course, I eased into it like a good girl, but I did go 20mph, maybe more, before I slowly started the gas. Now it was my turn to surprise my Dad. I'd said that after we went the 20 I'd let him drive us home (No,I did not drive home, don't even start thinking that.), but I decided to park one last time in the student of the month place before heading home.
Well, there you have it, my first day of driving and nothing was crashed/no one was killed. That gets me a star sticker as far as I was concerned.....I wonder what Mom'll teach me next time........
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