Driver's Ed Reminiscence

So I was blogging about The Breakfast Club on "The Finer Things Club" and thinking about detention, which I have never experienced thanks to my angelic nature. However, this got me thinking about the time Megan Lemmon and I were kicked of Driver's Ed. It's true that we whispered one or two sentences to each other, but mostly we were victims of Mr. Rapanich's anger management issues. He started yelling quite boisterously for us to get out of his classroom, and at first I didn't even realize he was talking to us because, in my opinion, we hadn't done anything worthy of his indignation. I was just looking around the classroom, trying to solve the mystery. Eventually, with enough of his yelling, I realized he meant for Megan and me to leave, so I grabbed my things and scurried out of there before he could start breathing fire.

It wasn't until I was safely outside in the rain that I took the time to put my books and things in my backpack. But where was Megan? I was sure Mr. Rapanich had been yelling at both of us because he had commenced his tirade while Megan was in mid-sentence. She eventually did join me outside, but she was braver than I was and had stayed in the classroom to put away her things. She made sure to take her sweet time, too, just to further annoy Mr. Rapanich. We hung out in another room until class was over and then humbly returned to apologize, not because we were sorry, but because we wanted to be allowed to return the following day. Mr. Rapanich was suddenly very compassionate and assured us that he was only concerned for our safety. He was afraid that if we continued socializing in class, we would miss something vitally important and consequently die in a fatal car accident. Keep reading, and you will discover all the valuable things I remember from Driver's Ed.

My drive instructor was Mr. Gall, and my fellow drivers were Megan Lemmon and Meghan Johnson. Yes--Three Megans. I remember my first drive: It consisted of driving back and forth through the high school parking lot and learning how to use the pedals and turn signals. We were supposed to have already done some driving with our parents beforehand, but Megan Lemmon had not yet done this, and that first drive was her first time behind the wheel. Mr. Gall asked her to move the car forward a couple times and nothing happened. Megan insisted she was pushing the pedal down as far as it would go. From where I was sitting in the back seat, I could stretch and see what Megan's feet were doing.

"Megan," I said. "That's the brake."

Then I remember our final drive. Megan Lemmon was the last one to go, and I don't remember exactly what happened other than Mr. Gall having to use the emergency brake. I think that kind of threw off the whole drive for Megan. She was steering us back towards the Junior High, and I was staring out the window, feeling bad for my best friend. I saw two guys walking down the sidewalk. One of them had a tall neon green Mohawk, and it was he who caught me looking at them. He yelled something I couldn't make out--and then he mooned me. The parking spaces at the Junior High had cement blocks in front of them, and as Megan was pulling into a space, she hit the gas instead of the brake, and we had a very quick, rough ride over that block.

Some of the most important lessons I learned in Driver's Ed came from the videos we watched. I remember one video on road rage where this very angry man jerked his car over to the shoulder to retrieve his crossbow from his trunk. Unfortunately, I can't recall what he did after he had his crossbow in hand. I tried to find it on youtube, but was unsuccessful. I did however find a couple other ones. I will warn you that the second one is pretty extreme and someone gets ran over. I was shocked when I watched it, so if that's not something you want to see, don't watch it. The first video is a high class production created by actual driver's ed students.



Ouch! The only other video I remember was about a family whose van stalled on the railroad tracks. As luck would have it, a train was on its way towards them. The family responded by yelling orders at the father, who was in the driver's seat, and he shouted back as he repeatedly, yet unsuccessfully, attempted to start the car. Then the screen went black. I think the lessons to be learned by these videos are obvious.

My favorite question on the written test was something along the lines of what do you do when you see this sign: