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By Vincent
One thing I recall doing that I will never forget is when I drove my dad’s car for the first time. Before I begin to tell what happened, I just want to go ahead and say that when this happened, I didn’t have my permit yet. Now that that’s out the way let me begin.
It was on a Saturday morning, and I woke up around 8:30 in the morning. The sunshine in my face woke me up. At that very moment, my alarm decided to go off and I rushed to turn it off, not just because it was time to get up, but because I hated the sound it made. It was like a loud siren going off. I got ready for my first driving lesson. My dad drives me to the parking lot where CVS pharmacy in Rockridge used to be. When we got there, we looked at each other and got out. I think he looked at me because he thought this was his last day to live behind the wheel. Either it was that or it was because he wanted to make sure that I didn’t wreck his car. Nonetheless, we both got out and switched seats with each other. I sat down in the seat and my heart must have beat at least 5 times a second. My dad sat down and put his seatbelt on faster than I’ve ever seen in my life. The first thing that I did was put my foot on the gas and to my surprise, the car didn’t move. After that it was an awkward silence and my dad just started laughing at me.
“Why are you laughing? What’s so funny?” I asked him
“You have to put the car in gear first and before anything you need to put your seat belt on and check your mirrors” he said as he laughe
I did all of the things that he told me to do and everything seemed to become comfortable. Later on in my lesson, he introduced me to a 3-point turn. If you don’t know what a 3-point turn is, it’s when you alternate between forward and reverse with the direction of your car or truck. You usually do this when in a parking lot and you’re trying to find a parking spot. While I was practicing the 3-point turn, all I heard from my dad was to look where I was going. I didn’t listen to him on purpose because I was so focused on not trying to trash the car.
After I got the hang of it, we worked on stopping at stop signs. We came from behind the parking lot and drove up to a nearby stop sign. I knew what to do and stopped, but when I stopped, the car seemed to jerk rather than just slowing down and coming to a complete stop. My head jerked forward and immediately went back to the head cushion. While recovering from the impact, my dad started laughing again and I asked him the same question:
“What’s so funny? Why are you laughing?” I asked.
“I’m laughing, because of the face that you made when you were about to stop,” he said while laughing.
At that point I just threw my hands up and said:
“I’m done. I don’t want to do this anymore.”
We get out of the car, get back in our original seats, and go back home. My dad then tells me:
“You actually did pretty good for your first time, but you have a long way to go when it comes to driving by yourself.”
I just looked away and took a nap until we got home. I guess driving isn’t for everybody.