Driving me nuts!

So I'm driving along this morning and I get caught at a red light. As I'm sitting there waiting to turn left, I do what we all do when waiting what seems like an eternity for that precious left turn arrow. I start radio channel surfing. I ended up on some song I knew and started singing along and bee-bopping my head to the music. That pesky light still wasn't changing. So I adjusted my sunglasses, checked my hair in the mirror, picked my nose, and checked my phone. You know, all the normal stuff we ALL do but most people try to deny (I'm on to you nose pickers).

Right as the other people's light changed from yellow to red and mine changed to green, I saw it. A car speeding through the light from the other direction. Because I saw them coming, I simply just kept my foot on the brake and waited for them to clear the intersection. Sure they were breaking the law and obviously turning on red, but it's not like I haven't made the same mistake. As the car flew through the intersection I began my fatherly,condemning stare down. But, as it turns out, this was no ordinary car. No, this just happened to be a driving school student driver car, complete with driving school logo on the door and everything. I was dumbfounded.


The driver was clearly a sixteen year old boy. It wasn't an instructor running late to pick a kid up. No, it was a sixteen year old boy with sunglasses on and one arm resting on the open window tapping his hand on the roof to the rhythm of the radio. He looked to be chewing bubble gum. He was taking the turn at about 20 mph all the while looking calm and cool as a cucumber. The only words I could mutter was, "What the hell?"

I remember going through driver's school. I remember watching the gruesome Death on the Highway movie complete with bloody wreckage scenes. I remember watching a movie about some crazy good geeky driver that would "give a little toot of the horn to let other drivers know he was a comin" and how he would "avoid wolf packs" of cars on the highway. I remember being nervous as heck when I got picked up at my house by Kevin the Bick's driving instructor. I remember having to keep my hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel at all times. I remember not following too close, not even getting anywhere near the speed limit and stopping about 20 feet behind the crosswalk. Driving is a privilege, not a right! They ingrained this stuff into us and basically scared the crap out of us about driving.

Then I see this kid today. Chewing gum, wearing shades, listening to the music, using one hand, running a red light, speeding through an intersection. Holy crap! What's going on? I'm sure it was a fluke, right? This kid is definitely going to fail his driving test, right? They're not really letting him get away with that, right? He stole the instructional car and had his mom pose as the instructor in the seat next to him, right? There HAS to be some explanation.

I thought about what I saw for awhile after that. My mind wandered and I started to imagine what it could have been like in that car. Maybe he lights up a cigarette before they even back out of his driveway. He's texting some hottie while weaving in and out of lanes. He starts blaring the radio every time a crappy Nickelback song comes on. He runs through the drive-thru and makes the instructor buy him a 40 oz of Keystone Light. And he keeps saying things like, "Pipe down, Toots!" every time the she tries to correct his driving.

Part of me felt so unsafe while I watched this kid barrel through the intersection. The other part of me thought it was somehow hilarious and wanted to see a movie made out of his exploits:

Too Cool For (Driving) School