Driver's Ed. and Amusement

     I was browsing through The Archives today and found a short, lighthearted email that I sent to my brother back in the day.  Before I started a blog or even sent people Meg Updates by email, I would send Ben an email, and if he considered it humorous he would forward it to his email list.  Hence “Archives”.  One of my biggest regrets in life was not saving the emails I sent Ben when I was taking Driver’s Ed.  Those were hilarious days, let me tell you.  Ben, Ruthy, and I all had Mr. M for a drivers’ ed teacher, and I think we all amused him in our own special way.  Mr. M was the spitting image of Bruce Willis, had a very dry humor, and, I suspect, had more patience for teenagers than he pretended to (otherwise he would have quit that job long before he acctually did).    

   When I got to his class I was amused to hear him regale the class with the tale of a  particular fellow that he had in his class a few years back who blazed through a parking lot with blatant disregard for those ever-sacred yellow lines (unnocupied by cars, I should mention).  That fellow was Ben, and I didn’t hesitate to inform Mr. M that the rogue he spoke of was, infact, my older brother.  From then on he had his eye on me.  I like to think that I was a source of amusement for my teacher, though.  We shared an amused glance between us at least once a day (can you tell I like the word ‘amuse’?  That’s what I want on my tombstone, by the way:  “She was amusing”.  But I digress). 
   Mr. M took us out daily by the carload, and I shared my vehicle with three other girls, who, I shall say in the gentlest way possible, took up more than their fair share of space.  Cue the amused looks.  It took those girls an extra two minutes to assemble themselves in the backseat when it was my turn to drive.  It was during those times that Mr. M was, naturally, in the passenger seat with his foot hovering habitually over his instructor’s brake.  We would exchange our customary glance and wait with the utmost patience.  As a probably-unecessary sidenote, I avoided the rear middle seat with as much earnestness and grace as possible.  There simply wasn’t enough room, and the car was one of those ridiculous compact things anyway. 
   Anyway, I think my turn to amuse Mr. M came on the day of the midterm driving exam. He hadn’t yet arrived in the parking lot.  The other girls and I had just reached the unanimous conclusion that it was best to test second.  No one wanted to go first, there was too much pressure there.  Third was less-than-desireable, and last was just unpleasant.  Well, we all wanted to go second, and it was I who suggested we settle the matter with an arm-wrestling tournament.  We sprawled out on the pavement and faced off.   Mr. M walked out just as I brought down my final opponent’s arm with a hearty “Yes!”  The look on that man’s face was indescribable, but I like to think that he was amused as well as  bewildered.  
   Ruthy’s tale of amusement is as follows:  Mr. M drove her carload out into the country and stopped next to a cornfield and then got out so they could switch drivers.  After regarding her suroundings suspiciously for a moment, Ruthy asked Mr. M, “Is this the part where you kill us?” 
   Well, I meant to write a brief introductory to a past email that I thought was amusing, but I ended up writing something else entirely that is probably long enough.  I’ll post this for now, and get to that other email some other time.  Ta ta.