One second James, the instructor, was standing tall, pointing her toward a parking place, and the next he was kissing the pavement.

All the student drivers stopped their cars, the other driving instructors ran to James, Tara instantly burst into tears, and I quietly thanked God for not making me be the one who almost killed our driving instructor. 

James was only slightly injured. I mean, sure, he gimped around a lot the rest of the afternoon and winced every time he swung himself in and out of my passenger seat, but I must say that for a man who narrowly escaped filing the ultimate workers' compensation claim, James handled his injuries with aplomb. For her part, Tara remained borderline hysterical until her parents came to take her home.  

I was feeling pretty cocky the next morning when my husband dropped me off at driving school. I sat in my little Mitsubishi before the lessons began, smugly surveying all the other students fidgeting in their cars and checking themselves out in the rearview mirror, and thought, "Man ... I could kick all of your asses on the SAT if I wanted to." 

I spotted Tara the Terror. She sat glumly in her parents' suppository-shaped minivan, looking like she'd rather have been at home scrubbing toilets. Tara's sour mood aside, the morning held more of the same excitement as the day before. We were fine-tuning our skills in preparation of the afternoon's "parents' recital," a thoroughly humiliating event that involved our negotiating a tricky slalom course in front of our parents - or in my case, my husband and infant child.  

Particularly nerve-wracking was the part where our parents - or in my case, my husband and infant child - had to get into our cars with us as we showed off our amazing new driving skills.

I was so nervous that my recital was more like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. I blazed through a red light when I should have changed lanes to catch the green light, accelerated and turned when I should have braked and turned, and plowed through an orange pylon or two. Despite these major infractions, which would have earned me a date in traffic court in the real world, I was still proclaimed a "much-improved driver." 

It's been more than two years since my driving school adventures, and I'm now a seasoned driver. Occasionally, I wonder about my fellow students, particularly Tara the Terror. I wonder, "Did she pass her driving test? Is she more confident on the road? Has she killed her first pedestrian yet?" 

As a driver, it pleases me to report that I must be doing something right because I haven't been ticketed, arrested, flipped off, shot at, or driven off the road for my minor offenses. Driving has opened my world up to the possibilities of dates, after-school jobs, and road trips ... all of which would all be extremely exciting if I weren't already in possession of a husband, a career, and a passport.  

Nevertheless, I feel like I'm sixteen years old again - or how I should have felt when I was sixteen, cruising down the narrow country lanes of my hometown with the windows open and the GoGo's singing at the tops of their lungs about having the beat.

And for the first time in my life, I finally feel like I've got the beat, too.

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