Once again I ventured out into the wild to teach my daughter how to drive. I love her and I have massive respect for her ability as an artist and muffin cook but as a driver, she is OH MY GOD LOOK OUT!
How bad? First words out of her mouth: This is the brake? Sooooo, this is the gas?
It did not inspire confidence.
But I know it's not always as bad as it seems to the parent desperately trying to shove their brake foot through the passenger side floorboard.
But my job is to inspire confidence and bring her to a level of pilotus automobilius that will allow me to send her on important errands like getting me an emergency Partagas Maduro. We need her to go get McDonald's, gas, drive her brother to school, and pick up another metric ton of Diet Coke.
So I swallowed my fear and kept a calm exterior as she braked at green lights, changed lanes without looking, drove over a curb and generally left a wake of destruction and terror from Cicero and Elston all the way to Costco in Skokie.
And the confidence trick is working. She's already dismissing poorly parked cars with a roll of her eyes and she's beginning to curse with genuine aplomb. But I am perhaps providing a disservice as her skills don't quite match her game face. I want her to be confident, I do, but I also want her to quit asking, this way is right, right?
A Chicagoan is not considered a real driver until one circumnavigates the Dan Ryan Expressway on Saturday night at 9 p.m., Lower Wacker Drive on Thursday at 4:45 p.m., and Lake Shore Drive on Friday afternoon at 5:15 p.m. It's the equivalent of Frodo and Samwise returning the Ring of Power to Mount Doom in Mordor.
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