30/11/01

Lamed brains

Don't tell me everyone has to learn sometime. They can learn to drive at 4 a.m., when I'm not on an urgent mission.

    I love driving. No, actually, I hate driving. Let me explain.
    I was packing for a trip, the kids didn't have a thing to wear, and we'd run out of laundry detergent. Off to the store I went.
    "Back in five minutes," I called to them cheerily. "Can you stay out of trouble that long?"
    "Doubt it," they chimed back as I jogged out to the car.
    It's 20 seconds to the makolet and 23 seconds back (it's uphill), but I had to factor in some time to choose the correct detergent. I've been doing my own laundry for many years and I still don't know what's better, Ultra, Super, or Extra Super. I know a lot about detergents -- too much. To make an informed choice, I'd have to buy one of each, because the Israeli stuff is good enough for coloreds, but for whites you have to buy the imports, though not Bio, which is bad for the environment, and the package should say "good at low temperatures" which means I have to read all the small Hebrew print on each box. So I make my choice based on whatever's on sale.
    My makolet doesn't have sales, so I figured it was worth driving another few blocks to the supermarket. But it was closed (the guard explained in Russo-Hebrew either that it was being fumigated or robbed), so I continued on a bit to the Hyper Super. (The Ultra Super Hyper Duper Super is currently under construction; I can't wait.)
    Shoulda taken me 15 minutes, max.
    But there was a problem with traffic. Not exactly a snarled, slow-moving traffic jam; it was just one slow-moving car.
    A learner.
    I really can't stand these student drivers. They're all over the place, but none of them are actually going anywhere. Thousands of them are simply out there learning how to create traffic. Why can't they do their learning in the Negev, or the Golan, or if they really want to become good drivers in a hurry, along one of those sheer-drop cliff roads up in the mountains?
    No. They have to learn exactly where emergency vehicles like ambulances, police cars and my Toyota frequently go.
    This particular learner was a jittery idiot who was in no danger of passing his test. He was trying to parallel-park, but the only thing parallel to the curb was his back axle.
    He couldn't possibly get into the spot because another car -- also bearing that loathsome "Lamed" learner's sign -- was at that moment trying to unpark from the same place. The two learners heaved and jolted back and forth like mating rhinoceroses, with my shiny, dentless car at the mercy of their flaying fenders.
    "Get on with it," I yelled helpfully.
    A sports car snuck up behind me and honked. Well, honked; it must have been outfitted with foghorns from a dismantled lighthouse. My organs imploded from the sound waves. "Get on with it!" the driver yelled. I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw a Lamed sign hanging from the sports car. Great. A learner honker. But he was doing very well.
    I spun my car around and escaped into the opposite lane, intending to zip down a few side streets to get wherever the hell I was supposed to be going. The supermarket, I think it was, for, uh, soap, no, eggs -- ah yes, egg shampoo.
    Going back to where I'd come from was not a good idea. I found myself behind a bus. A double-length, articulated bus. A big, bad bus with a bright blue Lamed sign. The skinny kid behind the wheel was matriculating Bus Stop Delay Tactics, going through the motions of disgorging 180 passengers and processing 180 new ones, taking money, giving change, arguing, flirting and chatting, taking his time while creating a mile-long bottleneck behind him. The  matriculating articulated bus driver was particularly inarticulate when I gesticulated at him with a finger of my choice.
    Y'know, they could learn just as well at 4 a.m., when I'm not desperate to buy hair tonic.
    The streets have become like one huge outdoor classroom for people with driving learning disabilities. Why do they make it look so difficult? Driving is so simple! With one hand you're steering, one foot is operating whatever pedals the manufacturer has installed, another hand is tuning the radio, the other foot is tapping to the music, the other hand is manipulating the cellphone, and both eyes are carefully watching passersby, in case you know anyone worth showing off to.
    Jeez, I hadda learn to drive in rain and sleet and snow and ice, in a hilly, rollercoaster city where even the women drive like madmen, and you had to drive very fast or you might miss the beginning of the hockey game.
    There, you're born knowing how to drive. What you have to learn is to be like everyone else, a maniac.

DOWN THE block, two guys were learning Head-On Collisions.
    A student cabbie was being tested on U-turns. He was doing very well, snarling traffic in four lanes while ignoring the abusive comments.
    I spotted a herd of cement mixers coming my way, their Lamed signs swaying hypnotically. Heading toward them was a convoy of steamshovels, their diggers bobbing like elephant trunks. I found myself stuck in the midst of final exams for Street Ripping And Major Construction.
    In the middle of the road, Blaumilch was giving lessons on the use of the pneumatic drill.
    My family would have to do without gin and tonic unless I thought fast.
    I stopped, sizing up an escape route.
    I should not have stopped, not there, not next to a hitchhiking soldier. He jumped in. "Yalla," he said.
    I gave him a dirty look. "What are you doing here?"
    "Beginner's Hitchhiking Course. I'm in Basic Training."
    Of course. "Out!" I commanded him. "
    I swerved onto a garden and crashed through a fence, onto a side street and right into a spot of trouble. "Pull over, Mac."
    "But officer, I've got to buy powdered ginseng, it's an emergency."
    The policeman, a big, mean-looking guy, scratched his head. "Ginseng. I see." He turned to his partner. "What do I do now?"
    A student cop, for crying out loud. I hadn't seen a Lamed sign, because it was an unmarked learner's patrol car. Fortunately, today was his lesson in Menacing Shakedowns and Compassionate Warnings. He let me off. "But don't go crashing through fences again," he warned.
    I drove away, slowly. So slowly, in fact, that I realized my wheels weren't moving. Stuck again.
    It was the darndest thing: in front of me was a car, in the middle of the road, with two guys in it. The car wasn't moving. The men were sitting in the front passenger seat -- both of them.
    It was the answer to a question I'd always wondered about: When a driving instructor drives around with someone learning to be a driving instructor, who drives?
    Seeing this student driving teacher, now I knew.
    If nothing else, I was learning a lesson from all this.
    Well, I got to the supermarket (kept getting rammed in the ankles by a cart pushed by an immigrant who'd just arrived the day before from the Urals), and found the soup powder.
     Back home, finally, I was aggressed by the little 'uns. "You've been gone for hours!" they bewailed.
    "Sorry about that. Anyway, here's the soap powder."
    "Aww, Daddy! It's soup powder, which won't get our clothes clean." I got a severely dirty look.
    Well, why does it have to be me running these errands? A pipsqueak piped up with a ready answer. "Because we don't know how to drive. But as soon as we're old enough, Daddy, you will teach us."