by Bruce Reinhardt

One of the rites of passage for any kid is a driver’s license, but first, comes the Learner’s Permit from the high school. In my opinion the legal age for driving should be raised from fifteen to around thirty-five, or at least after your daughter is married and long gone. At that point her husband can teacher her how to drive, while she teaches him how to fold towels.

I was living in an older home on a hill in West Seattle and had survived the sports car stage of my mid-life crisis so I owned a very sensible Volvo with a stick shift. My daughter, Erica approached me one day and asked, “Dad, can you give me some extra driving time? Three of us have to share the school Driver’s Ed car and none of us really gets to drive it for more than three and a half seconds.” Girls learn early how to stretch the truth into manipulation.

So on the following Sunday, a chilly winter Northwest-kind of morning, with a few inches of snow on the road, I decided that Erica and I should go for a drive. I had my mind set on going to a big empty community college parking lot up the hill and a few blocks away. It seemed like the perfect safe spot for driving and parking lessons; so I tossed her the car keys, and we headed out the door.

The first thing she said after getting behind the wheel was, “How come you don’t have an automatic transmission like the other girls’ dads? Doesn’t this car even have a tape player? And I can’t believe you don’t have a mirror on the visor!” Since I had already had sixteen years of experience in having a daughter I managed to keep my sanity pretty well in tact despite the obvious disdain for my “practical” car. “Well, Erica,” I said, “you’ve been in this car about sixteen million times and you’ve never mentioned anything, before now, about all those missing luxuries.” And with a serious look on her face she replies, “I’ve never been in the driver’s seat, so how could I notice?” Case closed.

The lesson begins with how to fasten the seat belt, without wrinkling her blouse. And, she reminds me that she isn’t a child and that she has actually driven a car. The rest of the lesson then deteriorates into gear grinding, stalling the engine on the hill, and bouncing off the curb. This all happens within ten feet of the house, and I’m seriously wondering how the hell we are gonna get anywhere near the college.

So to break up the impending frustration, me-the-dad took over the driving and got us up and over to the college parking lot, which fortunately on totally level ground. And to boot, there’s only one parked car in the entire twenty-acre lot, which means NO ACCIDENTS! I couldn’t help but think, however, that it would be just like a woman to somehow manage to hit that one and only car. And at that moment I suddenly understood the wisdom behind Volvo’s decision to put the emergency brake lever between the front seats. As far as I could tell, this driving lesson could turn into an emergency at any moment!

Sure enough, my darling daughter heads for the car so I calmly told Erica, at the top of my lungs, to “WATCH OUT!” She instinctively gave me that “Don’t blow a gasket” look just before we slide to a comfortable STOP. There was complete and total silence. The engine stalled again and I took notice of how the snow had started to fall harder. Erica was the first one to break the spell. “How about some hot cocoa with those little marshmallows, Daddy?”

“What, no more driving lesson?” I asked. She says, “Oh, there’s plenty of time for that, like maybe next week.”

Yeah, she’s right, there was plenty of time.

I still had my little girl. She’d be off in a cloud of dust, burning rubber and clashing gears soon enough.

But, at that particular moment, it was ‘Cocoa Time’.

Moral: Never pass up an opportunity to share cup of hot chocolate and marshmallows with your daughter, no matter how old she is. Most everything else, can wait.