A look back at my driver's educational past

While driving to pick up my mother for her Foot God appointment the other day I was stopped, along with the other two lanes of traffic, at a school crossing area  I was in the middle lane and feeling thankful that I was stopped because in my middle lane on either side of me was this:

As I had approached them I felt a moment of panic, and visions of my high school driver's education class came rolling through my mind and flashed before my eyes. Back then you took the class during school. Our school had an actual driver's course complete with a tower where the teacher would reside watching over us all. There was a radio system where he could talk to us through our radio and each car was known by a number. I was always in car #6. Usually I was with the same girl, Dawn, but this one time, naturally, I was with a guy.

I think he was riding in the passenger seat and none too happy at being in a car with me. We had to maneuver our way around orange cones, park, back up, and continue on our way around more orange cones. Now I never had an experience actually driving before that driver's education class. I didn't steal my parents' car and take a spin with it around the neighborhood to get use to driving like my brother did. I didn't practice driving at the farm like my brother did. I don't even remember being asked to take a whirl at driving beyond sitting in my Dad's lap as a small child and steering while he drove, and I'm not even sure the car was moving then. So here I was driving nervously around a bunch of strategically placed cones embarrassed to be riding with a guy I didn't even know.

I managed to knock two cones over while driving in the circles around them, but it was when I backed up that the problem occurred. I backed up into the space outlined with cones, but I went a tad too far and ended up squashing the line of cones set up to let me know when to stop. I nervously laughed, put the gear in forward, and continued on my way, completely ignoring the voice coming through the radio telling me to stop. It wasn't until I had gone to the next set of cones that I realized the voice was speaking to me...quite loudly.

Teacher: "CAR 6 STOP! CAR 6 STOP THE CAR! STOP THE CAR!"
Boy: "I think he wants you to stop".

I slammed on the brakes pitching the two of us forward, totally petrified because I hadn't stopped earlier.

Teacher: "CAR 6...(big sigh)...Would the passenger of Car 6 please get out of the car and remove the cone that is stuck in the back of the car?"

Yep, I had been dragging one of the orange cones that I had hit when I had backed up into the parking spot. I must admit that I did notice a sound when I accelerated, but not being a expert driver I wasn't aware that it was a sign of a problem. The kid sighed, got out of the car, and had to spend quite some time wiggling the cone around to get it out from wherever it was stuck in the underside of the back of the car. At that point the teacher suggested we trade seats, and mortified, I did.

Bless that crossing guard.  Because stopping before those cones made it easier for me when I was given the okay to continue on my way to slide through them at a very slow speed without annoying the other drivers around me.  Not that I would have hit them normally, but seeing them brought back that memory and sometimes....sometimes...memories have a way of springing up and ruining everything.