License to Drive

Some of you may wonder if I made up this story (I didn't).  Most of you will wonder WHY I'm sharing it, but there will be a point. 

Like most teens, I was eager to get my driver’s license.  I practiced on our dirt road—using an OLD 3-speed Rambler my dad sold to me.  He later sold it to someone else (and kept my money).  That’s a different story.  I was ready to take the driving test, but no one would take me.  My parents weren’t keen on having another driver in the family. 

Finally they relented during the school holiday between Christmas and New Year’s.  The youngest of my 3 sisters (the one who set me free in the woods) agreed to take me .  Yes!  I’d never driven her car, but I was confident that driving it to the DMV would be enough for me to get a feel for it. 

It would have been, except she refused to let me drive.  She said she agreed to take me, she didn’t agree to be my passenger.  It was still the best (only) offer I had.  The test consisted of driving through a course laid out in the DMV parking lot and then parallel parking.  My first attempt to park didn’t work.  So I checked the mirrors, pulled back out, and tried again.  Once I thought I was in the space properly, I put the car in “Park”.  The reviewer opened his door, looked down, and then told me to drive him back to the building—I passed. 

Once inside, my sister informed me she was not bringing me back.  That confused me.  I asked her if they made you come back to actually receive your license.  She responded, “No, but you failed.”  When I told her I passed, she got angry.  She wanted me to fail.  

Like that trip into the woods, it wasn’t anything (too) personal.  She failed the driving test the first 3 times she took it.  Like me, all of our other siblings passed on the first try.  That sister didn't want to be the only one who failed the driving test.  She wanted company in her misery. 

That's not unusual--I guess that's why there is an expression about it.  But the world is a much happier place when we manage to put aside petty feelings and instead try to be happy when others succeed--even on something so small as passing a driving test.  My sister could have been happy on the drive home.  But she chose to be miserable. 

Don't be like my sister!!!  That might be the best advice I've ever given.  LOL!

 

PS - Normally I’d feel compassion for someone in her position and offer comfort.  But her attitude pushed the same buttons my old classmate Harper did.  I wasn’t mean to her, there was no taunting.  I simply left her to her misery.   That was sort of the high road, right???