My Ordinary Life: Audrey the Menace

April 27, 2011

Audrey didn't have class this morning and was sleeping in to recover from the previous nights' cramming for her design projects, but I had to be mean and wake her up with bad news: No matter how dewy-faced you might be in real life, you can still look like a convict on your driver's license. Hers arrived in the mail today and confirmed the above universally-acknowledged truth. Exceptions are rare, but once, more than a decade ago, I had the uncommon luck of photographing well on my driver's license (at the risk of sounding immodest I'd say I even looked a bit glamorous by DMV standards). Unfortunately, Murphy's law predictably interfered and I ended up losing that license and my vanity forever, going back to looking like a sinister hobo on my replacement card. Since then I've been pining for the day when I'd appear halfway decent again on my state-issued ID.

No one was more surprised than I when Audrey passed the driving test on her first try. She was simply tired of waiting and decided to wing it before we both felt she was ready. I didn't object because I thought failing the test could teach her more about safe driving than I was able to, schlepping along as her Accompanying Driver. Fortunately, or unfortunately... whichever way you look at it, Audrey got her license rather prematurely and now I can’t help obsessing that my daughter's about to mow down countless unwitting pedestrians and bicyclists on the streets of Tustin.

So I'd admit I was a coward to hand over my uninitiated teenager to a professional instructor for her first six hours on the road. Technically, Audrey wasn't required to take lessons with a certified instructor because she's no longer a minor (she turned 19 last October), but I thought double brakes might come in handy and if Audrey was going to crash, I'd rather she wrecked the driving school's much-ballyhooed BMW Mini-Cooper than my trusty van.

What I heard from the fearless instructor, Mani, after witnessing Audrey jubilantly whiz into our driveway with him wearing a Cheshire-Cat smile from the passenger side, was that she'd done really well, but needed to go easy on the gas pedal (don't they all try to placate you with a bit of good news first even if your kid was an unredeemable menace on the street?) I learned what that meant on my first outing with Audrey at the wheel as I observed her flying past every other car on Culver Dr. easily clocking over 60 mph. When asked if she'd noticed she was going much faster than the flow of traffic, Audrey flashed a winsome smile and said, sweetly and undefensively, "I'm a speed demon."

Not too long ago, my cousin experienced the same ordeal of watching her own teenage daughter Nina learn to drive, and she was similarly horrified that Nina had turned out to be a speed demon! You wouldn't know it just by looking at her. My niece Nina was otherwise a timid mouse who, apart from her young age, would statistically make the grade to firmly entrench herself in the safe-driver category (female, honor student, placid temperament, etc.), just like Audrey!

To her credit, Audrey has been exceedingly patient as she waited without complaint for her practice car to come from out of state. I had forbidden her use of my van because as anyone who drives a Toyota Sienna can attest, it is poorly suited for the purpose of practicing lane changes due to the occluded view when checking blind spots. The Mazda 6 finally arrived from Seattle where my sister Midol lives (long story... with her gifting it to my other sister, Peni, and me offering to pay for its shipment to California in exchange for its temporary use by Audrey until she earned her license), and we diligently worked out our schedules to allow some practice hours on Audrey’s days off.

Mani told me I should put in at least thirty car rides with Audrey before realistically expecting her to pass the driving test. So apparently there's no escaping it... I would have to risk life and limb for my child because I couldn't afford to have Mani do it in my place (30 lessons x $113/lesson = $3,390)!

Practice session #1: Audrey took me out of the neighborhood for her first ride in the Mazda 6, which thankfully met with her approval because it was small and easy to maneuver. Instead of focusing on road conditions and other mundane traffic indications, Audrey was marveling over the scenery outside our community, which she'd apparently failed to notice when I was the one driving and she was either 1/ singing along to rap music; 2/ passing out on the back seat after a long day of classes in L.A. and the ensuing train ride back to the Tustin station; 3/ texting her friends or putting on make-up. For the first time, I realized what an acquaintance of mine had meant when he said, "Artists are always scanning for images". Problem was you probably shouldn't be doing that when you haven't yet learned to master the wheel.

I was terrified to discover Audrey couldn't make out street names until she had almost reached the intersection every single time. When I declared a state of emergency and vowed to get her the soonest check-up appointment with her optometrist, Audrey argued that her eyes were fine, it's just that she forgot to wear her hard contacts the night before, so her distance vision couldn’t be perfect! She claimed she could still see the outlines of landmarks and that was enough. For some reason, I'd failed to convince Audrey that being able to discern street names was an essential part of safe driving. This was the same girl who took AP classes in high school and got killer SAT scores with zero prepping! Funny how the teenage mind worked, almost in a parallel universe with mine. I shuddered to imagine Audrey eventually driving on her own... losing her way repeatedly around town and running out of gas without me sitting next to her reading aloud street names and reminding her to get in the correct lane ahead of a turn.

Practice session #2: Audrey traversed three lanes while making a left turn. My persistent probing led to her realization that she wasn't doing so due to poor car-handling skills or because she couldn't see where she was going, but rather... Irvine's wide streets had too many lanes and Audrey couldn't remember which was which after she'd entered the intersection, having had too little on-the-road experience. I had her make repeat left turns at numerous intersections around the block until she was no longer confused.

Practice session #3: The two of us were heading to Jo-Ann Fabrics near The District. Audrey's in her second year at FIDM (Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising), which explains why we had chosen a boring place like Jo-Ann to hang out on the weekends instead of the mall. As soon as we entered the shopping center from Barranca Parkway, Audrey zipped from one end of the lot to the other by crossing every row of parking spaces without checking for traffic in any directions, leaving me no time to protest or scream. Luckily, Jo-Ann’s parking lot was pretty much vacant on Sunday evening near closing time, so we were spared an accident in the making. When I'd sufficiently recovered from temporary muteness to query if she knew she should be driving within traffic lanes and not across parking spaces, Audrey said she did not, and the lot was basically empty anyway, so why should it matter?!

Practice session #4: Audrey has grown more confident in her driving ability (I'd probably say in a whisper... rather overconfident!) and meandered out of our neighborhood with her cell phone keypad opened in plain view on her lap. It was clear she'd been awaiting an “important” text. After my brief lecture about how her equally brief driving career could abruptly end with an accident or a bad ticket, Audrey reluctantly set her phone aside, but couldn't stop glancing at it wistfully every few seconds. I knew she would cradle it in her hand the whole time had I not been in the car as her pesky Accompanying Driver. Her overloaded handbag, which dangled precariously from her thigh, added another dimension of annoying distraction, causing Audrey to fumble her turns now and then. Finally, I’d had enough and made Audrey stop on the side of the road, imprison her cell phone in her purse, and throw the darned thing in the back seat out of reach.

Practice session #5: Audrey's driving skills have improved markedly... even I had to grudgingly concede… and she knew to get in the proper lanes almost 100% of the time. On the other hand, she still harbored a secret love affair with the gas pedal and I’d have to constantly admonish her to give it up! Unlike me, she couldn't wait to head out on the highway, even though she hasn't quite mastered surface-street driving. Purely by accident, we wandered out to the freeway from Red Hill Avenue after I failed to correct Audrey's misreading of a street sign, taking us onto the 55 when we'd been meaning to get on El Camino Real just one light ahead. We survived to return to Tustin after getting off at the first exit, but it was a hair-raising experience that had me desperately wanting to grab the wheel a couple of times.

Practice session #6: I no longer felt like I had to brace myself in the passenger seat, but now it's Andrea's turn to scare me. She recently disclosed, only half-jokingly, that I might not have to worry about her college tuition anymore, since she's fairly certain she'd be a casualty of her friend Ashley's driving before summer's end. Ashley is a good friend but a terrible driver who was kind enough to take Andrea to their Big* volunteer sessions two days a week at Kennedy Elementary School, freeing me to run the myriad of errands that comprised the curse of being a single mom to four active children. I was impressed with Ashley's initiative in getting her license so early and had no idea that since then she'd enraged enough drivers on the road that one cut-off motorist had angrily accosted her at the driver's window, with Andrea cringing as she witnessed the embarrassing incident from her passenger seat. One good thing about Andrea being with Ashley is that she had learned what not to do by observing Ashley navigate the streets of Tustin!