Smokey the Magnificent

Today was my, ahem, third driving test. To spare you any suspense, I passed; and just as well, because the whole experience is very demoralising to my inner calm, and I think another few goes would have given me a gastric ulcer. Crikey. I was initially pleased to see that my instructor was not the same lady with whom I’d bumped the car in the parking lot; it was, instead, a kindly-looking older man with a Scottish accent, and I warmed to him instantly, thinking he would be fatherly and approving.

He was not. At the beginning of the test I did a few silly things out of abject terror, and each time he barked at me “Wanna tell me why you did THAT? That’s not correct driving, SMOKEY, and if you don’t drive correctly I’m not gonna pass you!”. And I was all “Dude, you’re harshing my mellow”, but by the third outburst I was convinced I’d failed already, which oddly enough cheered me up a little; it seemed that the universe was humming along on its accustomed path and all was well. So I tootled contentedly through the rest of the test, even going so far as to answer back when he snapped that my overcautious gap selection could have made me a hazard to cars behind me, if there had been cars behind me. (Me: “True, but I knew there weren’t any cars behind me, and this is an 80k zone, so it seemed sensible to be cautious”. He: grim silence, probably taking pleasure in picturing the car crashing into a flaming fireball of death.) And at the end of the test, instead of relieving my nerves with a simple yea or nay, he worked through a laundry list of my driving defects - which oddly, were entirely different to the defects mentioned by the other instructor - I’m not sure if that’s good or bad - and ended by grudgingly admitting “Well, you did pass…”; clearly implying that left to his druthers, he’d have had me sterilised and shipped off to the Americas for the good of society, but his hands were tied. At any rate, he successfully managed to suck any sense of accomplishment out of the occasion, leaving me even more depressed than the time I failed.

Smegger.

And did he even ask after the baby? He did not. Wouldn’t have killed him.

Essentially, I should feel like this:

but as it is, I feel like this:

and that is all I have to say about that.