My first time.

So who wants to hear the story of my first time?

...my first time driving, that is. No one wants to hear that, do they?

That's fine, you can leave, all two of the people who read this.

So anyway. The bell rings at the end of lunch...my cue to go find my driving instructor outside. I suddenly feel slightly naseous as I picture images of me running over squirrels and driving my car through people's living rooms. The butterflies in my stomach are having seizures.

So I find my instructor and I slowly crawl into the passenger seat of the car, provided generously by the DMV. Now you see, when I sit in a car and there's a moderate amount of leg space, I tend to throw whatever bag or purse I happen to be carrying, on the floor at my feet. And as I entered this guy magnet of a car, I was very pleased at the amount of leg room provided for me, and I plopped my quite large and inhumanely heavy backpack at my feet. Of course, it didn't occur to me that there's an emergency brake there.

So the instructor (lovely lady, by the way), looks at me with a slightly expectant look on her face. I look back and smile like jackass.

"You can put your bag in the backseat, dear."

"oh, thats ok!"

"Well, let me just clear out some room in the back and put your bag there."

"Can I just keep my bag here?"

"well, actually..."

"Yea, I just wanna keep my bag here."

"On the emergency brake?"

"No, why would I want to do...Oh. I see. Oops."

So after she showed us how the car works (and after I had to not so subtly stare at her feet to figure out which pedal is the brake, and which one is the gas (this is important, just in case you didn't know), I drove.

And much to the world's surprise, I did pretty well! Oh yes, I turned those corners like I owned them. The car drove as smooth as butter under my expertise. (I'm kidding, of course, but it sure sounds good, doesn't it?) But in all (or some) seriousness, it was pretty good. I'm excited. The butterflies in my stomach were dancing. They were doing the Tango, in case you were wondering. They're classically trained ballroom dancers, those butterflies.

I wanna learn to drive a motorcycle next. I would look quite hot on a motorcycle. And my head would look quite broken.

Alright, now that I shared my joy with you all, I think I'll go back to walking around the house with a dinner plate in my hands, making car noises. Vroom, vroom.

(2002-09-05 - 8:09 p.m.)