All year long, it’s been months away. Plenty of time to plan for it. To ponder its meaning and significance. To get myself mentally prepared. To decide how best to handle it. Or even avoid it. You know … how to make sure it NEVER happens.
“That’s 11 months away. Plenty of time.”
“Not really thinking about it. We still have 8 months before that’s an issue. An eternity in dog years!”
“Sure it’s coming, but it’s still half a year from now. And I’m able to put it out of my mind fairly easily … thanks to bourbon.”
And I would have successfully kept going like that if not for the ticking of time, and stubborn family members who keep asking: “So, Brian! What are you doing about your daughter’s birthday?”
“Um … who? ‘Daughter,’ you say? Don’t remember having one.”
“Yes, you do. The pretty one? With the brown hair? The one who is, you know turning 15 and will be able to get her learner’s permit to drive?”
“Can’t hear you … still months away … don’t need to think about that yet. Blah-blah-blah. Dog years!”
“Oh no, dear sir,” they say. “Not months … THIS month!!!”
Eeeek!
BOOM! BANG! CRASH! KABLOOEY!
Let’s review: Birthday … turning 15 … end of THIS month … driving = fireball of death and/or my insurance rates going to Pluto.
And 15? FIFTEEN!!??!!
Can it be?
Fifteen seems big for so many reasons: Proper teen years (unlike those phony 13s and 14s when they’re just hitting their stride and learning from YouTube videos how to talk back.) Closer to college. Closer to moving out. Closer to the steering wheel, thanks to Florida’s desire to give these little critters driving learner’s permits.
I mean, I knew it was happening. But I really do have no concept of time. My wife will tell you this. It frustrates her to no end. She asks me, “So, how long until we eat dinner?”
I reply very confidently, “In exactly 45 minutes. The grill will be ready in 10 minutes, and the chicken will only take 13 minutes. So, no more than 60 minutes. Make sure you’re ready on the dot!” (She loves this.)
Probably that, and me just blocking it out. All kept me from seeing how close this monumental milestone was.
Not to mention the whole driving thing has me a little freaked out now that it’s right in front of me.
I mean, a couple months ago, I was kind of in to the idea of my daughter learning to get behind the wheel. I pictured myself being chauffeured around in the back seat and yelling things like, “Reginald, take me to the liquor store for more bourbon!”
With it suddenly not just on the horizon, but staring up my nostrils, I’m no longer so sure. People tell me all kinds of horror stories about their own experiences teaching their children to drive. How there isn’t a single cliff in Florida, but somehow their kid found a way to drive off of one during their first jaunt behind the wheel.
I’ve started thinking about wide open fields and vacant parking lots to test her out. Climbing up in a tree with binoculars and a walkie-talkie to bark orders. When we went kayaking recently, I let her reach over from the passenger seat to steer while on a deserted dirt road. That went OK, but now she’s asking to do that while driving down U.S. 1. NOT OK.
To make matters worse, and to inflict more pain, some driving school sent a “Florida Driver’s License Handbook” to our house addressed to “The Thompson Family (Parents and Teen).” It said that! It should have said, “Parents, whose insurance rates are about to go sky high, and Teen, who can’t even be trusted to get out of bed in the morning if previously mentioned Parents aren’t there to yell, ‘I’m going to spray you with a garden hose if you don’t at least move!’”
Maybe that’s what we need: driver’s school. Send the problem off to the professionals. Maybe they can then also cope with the idea of turning 15, and getting closer to college and moving out and all those other things that come with your kid reaching her “proper” teens. Goodness knows I’m struggling with it. Not that I can remember when “it” is. I seem to recall it might be sometime next year, or at least months and months away. Maybe in dog years.