As some of you know, I’m in the process of obtaining my driver’s license, and yesterday marked my first lesson where I was actually behind the wheel of the car. I showed up outside of the Donlands subway station at 3:30 where I met my teacher, Alpas.<\/p>\n

He was wearing a Snuggie.<\/p>\n

I wasn’t sure what to do with this. It was a cold day, after all, and Alpas, also sporting a traditional Kufi hat and an orthodox beard with no moustache, was clearly Muslim, and I wasn’t sure if what I thought was a Snuggie was just a winter version of the loose-fitting attire of many Muslim men.<\/p>\n

Unable to contain my curiosity, I asked, \u201cAre you wearing a Snuggie?\u201d<\/p>\n

Alpas looked me in the eyes, smiling faintly, as if trying to hypnotize me, \u201cIt is a Dishdasha, traditional wear for Muslim men.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I can see the Snuggie tag.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a Dishdasha.\u201d<\/p>\n

I nodded.<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, I get it\u201d<\/p>\n

I then explained to him that I had never been behind the wheel of a car, was nervous, got picked-on when at the bumper cars and always, always crashed my vehicle when I was playing video games. In short, I told him I was a challenge.<\/p>\n

He looked at me in astonishment, like I was some sort of miracle.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally? You’ve never had a Driver’s License? But your age, I thought you must have had one at some point, but maybe you lost it because of drinking? Is this not true? You can tell me, we are teacher and student, we must be honest, as I was with you about the Dishdasha.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t think you were honest.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have a learning disability, I see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alpas then talked to me about a number of boring car things before taking me to a parking lot where I was to get my first taste of driving. Excruciatingly slowly, I began to execute turns around a variety of concrete pillars. I felt very much like I was playing a video game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I’m playing a video game,\u201d I said to Alpas.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are not. Signal and turn left here, let the wheel slide back into place.\u201d<\/p>\n

You should know that there were pigeons all over the parking lot. I was driving extremely slowly and so they saw me as no threat, walking away from me rather than taking flight. This irritated me. I found it insulting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are birds everywhere,\u201d I said, anger rising in my voice.<\/p>\n

Alpas, ever calm, said, \u201c Do not worry about them, they will fly away, they will be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to run over them. Is that normal? I feel like they’re taunting me and that they’re part of the video game and each time I hit one I get 1000 points or something.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are not taunting you. They are just birds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess I perform best when engaged in an incentive based structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI will give you 500 points for every bird you do not hit, ok? When we reach 10, 000 you will reach the next level and we will go out onto the road.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c Cool! How many points do I lose if I kill a bird? I have a feeling that this might be important.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As some of you know, I’m in the process of obtaining my driver’s license, and yesterday marked my first lesson where I was actually behind the wheel of the car. I showed up outside of the Donlands subway station at 3:30 where I met my teacher, Alpas. He was wearing a Snuggie. I wasn’t sure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1458"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1458\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/michaelmurray.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}