Mar 28, 2005 10:08 AM
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(Updated Mar 28, 2005 10:08 AM)
Alright folks, picture this?
On a beautiful autumn day, a young girl and her father go for a short drive around sunny suburbia? sounds quite sweet and peaceful right? Now take this mental image you have created and place the afore mentioned young girl behind the steering wheel and her father in the passenger seat. Needless to say, the mood of my story has taken an almost sinister turn!
Still not convinced that the tale I?m telling will make the likes of Victor Hugo turn in their respective graves with horrified agony? Allow me to fill you in on a few particulars.
-> The young girl is gripping the steering wheel with such ferocious tenacity, the knuckles on her brown skinned hand have now turned alabaster white.
-> Her father, ordinarily a composed man, now feels compelled to grip the dashboard with bizarre vigor, whose oddity is only rivaled by the almost eccentric looking compression of his clenched jaw.
-> The young girl?s father is now in an enforced state of calm as he utters encouraging remarks through clenched teeth, while shrieking intermittently if the young girl dares to go a notch above 30km/h.
-> Fellow road users, having seen the lurid yellow?Learner? Plates on the young girl?s car, give her a wide berth? just in case the?learner? driver takes it in her head to brake abruptly or suddenly veer right on a dual carriage way.
-> Furthermore, fellow road users allow her right of way in any intersections, regardless of whether she actually has right of way or not.
Now folks, if you are still reading this and have refrained from the urge of running from your computer screen in sheer terror, calling your mother and calming yourself with a cup of hot(spiked) tea? I shall continue on with my story.
_XX_
The young girl has now practiced driving fairly earnestly. Indeed, her father can now sit beside her with relative ease, (that is to say? instead of gripping the dashboard, he now grips his knees), and sometimes even allows the young girl to cruise at a modest 32km/h! The young girl, I?m afraid to say, has become a little too confident and suggests to her father that perhaps they should start parking. The father ponders the matter, and after acknowledging that parking can only be done at speeds of 0-5km/h, agrees and takes the young girl to a deserted parking lot.
At the parking lot, the father points to the multitude of empty spaces and genially instructs his daughter to pick any spot she desires and park it. The young girl, filled with enthusiasm, and swings the car into slot. Alas, our young girls enthusiasm for parking is not matched with talent? this she finds out the hard way as she comes to the realization that the lines that divide the parking slots is(very accurately) bisecting her car in two!
However, as the passage of time a has knack for blurring past disappointment, our young girl is back on the road and in a short while, suggesting to her parents that perhaps she should drive them to their cousin?s house for their sons birthday party. Her parents are cautious, but hesitantly find themselves agreeing. The young girl?s sister bluntly refuses to get into the car.
_XX_
The car journey starts of smoothly? in other words, the young girl gets the car on to the main road without in fatalities. The mother and the sister(the sister having entered the vehicle under strong coercion) are occupying the back seat, and have now relaxed enough to let go of their obstinate grip on the door handles, when the question arises? has the young girl ever entered/driven on the freeway? The answer is yes? once on a deserted day when the young girl was instructed to drive down the freeway ramp at a steady 32km/h. Saturday night traffic proves to be more of a challenge.
On entering the ramp, my father begins to over instruct. My mother, being one of my father former driving pupils, gets irritated and orders him to keep quite and then informs him the young girl is doing fine. As the freeway ramp ends, the girl realizes she will have to merge with heavy traffic. The three passengers in the car all set about giving her conflicting advice. The girl filters out their opinions and merges according to her best instincts. A debate rages in the back seat as to whether her head check was of an appropriate length of time, while the father maintains the girl failed to perform it.
The rest of the journey is pretty uneventful, until that is? they pull in front of their cousin?s house. A leisurely discussion follows as to the best method of parking the car. The father hurriedly vetoes the suggestion of pulling into the driveway? clearly reminiscing about the deserted parking lot and the young girls bad aim in that situation. The girl is finally instructed to park the car in the curb. On the first attempt, she parks the car on the curb, in the second she parks the car a good meter away from the curb and finally she compromises by parking the front wheel on the curb and the back wheel a meter away from the curb. Her father takes over.
