I’m presently taking a driver’s education course on the weekends in a small, windowless room with about two dozen teenagers. It’s presided over by a guy named Clark who always wears khaki pants and a pair of black shoes that express nothing other than a willingness, and perhaps even a need to conform.
Repeatedly, he’s told us that he’s a graphic designer and that he made the power point presentation and booklet we work from himself.
“It took me six years,” he says proudly, as if waiting for gasps and applause.
Reflexively condescending, he has the slightly defensive, almost combative manner of somebody used to hoarding rather than sharing information. He needs to know more than you do, and even posed as a teacher he works at maintaining that discrepancy rather than levelling it.
We disliked one another immediately.
Illustrating a point about how dangerous it is to put decorations on you dashboard, he trotted out his wife as an example. One day she thought to put a small framed photograph on the dash, and as if throwing himself over a bomb, he shouted, “NO!” You see, if the airbag went off it could send the photograph cartwheeling through the air like a missile, potentially killing their son! And later, while explaining how we all needed to be in the right frame of mind to drive– with minimal distractions in the car– he cited how distracting it was to drive when somebody else was sobbing in the vehicle, and immediately I imagined his wife and what a chore it must be to live with Clark.
However, Clark wants learning to be fun, and in the service of this pursuit he created a little scenario where one of us (me!) got to pretend that we were being interviewed by the police as to why we had been speeding.
Clark: Why were you speeding?
Me: I was playing Angry Birds and I was in the Zone. I could have been going a million miles an hour for all I know.
This got a big laugh from the classroom.
Clark: You could have killed somebody.
Me: I am a very angry bird.
Clark sighed.
Clark: Do you think this is a joke, Michael? Driving is a privilege not a right, you have to take it very seriously!
Me: Well, I take Angry Birds very seriously.
This got even more laughs, including a hoot from a boy whose parents had optimistically named him All-Star.
Clark screamed at the class to be quiet.
Me: We’ve now moved into the Road Rage stage of our performance.
The class roared.
Hissing at me through clenched teeth, Clark expelled me from his class, explaining that I would have to finish up the course at a different time, with a different instructor and at a different location.
Murray wins another one.