By Natalie Parker:
One or more of these will happen to me. Probably all of them, honestly. They will probably all occur simultaneously. I will probably defy physics with my spectacularly bad luck and, of course, some elbow grease, whatever the hell that is.
SCENARIO 1:
I drive up. The instructor gets in and tells me to start whenever I’m ready. My car, the safest Lexus on the market, which my parents insisted on, then spontaneously combusts. I roast to a perfect 145 degrees and become a tasty pork tenderloin. The instructor, whose face has melted off to reveal something demonic, like Gollum or Satan or Mark Zuckerberg, unhinges their jaw and swallows me whole before flying away with wings made of old diapers.
PROS: I don’t have to live through the embarrassment of failing my driver’s test.
CONS: Mark Zuckerberg is hella fugly, and I don’t want his face to be the last thing I see before I die.
SCENARIO 2:
I drive up. I run over the instructor as they approach my car and their body instantly explodes. As it turns out, the instructor was a robot containing sensitive government information that was wired to self-destruct once it was tampered with. The instructor’s robotic spouse and children poof onto the sidewalk out of nowhere and start crying, but their tears frizz out their circuits and they die horrible deaths in front of me. The police pull up and I get arrested for triple homicide and high treason.
PROS: If I’m arrested, I’ll have bigger things to worry about than whether or not I passed my driver’s test.
CONS: I’ll have bigger things to worry about than whether or not I passed my driver’s test.
SCENARIO 3:
I drive up. The instructor gets into the car. I turn to my right and realize that the instructor is my mother. I have no choice but to go through with the test. Every three feet, she writes something down. Her critical gaze makes my hands tremble like Jell-O (which, by the way, is the world’s most disgusting dessert. Hate me all you want, but I’d rather my snacks not dance like nobody’s watching). When I parallel park, I wind up on a slight diagonal, despite executing everything else flawlessly. Later that day, I find out that I failed. I go home and the only thing in my fridge is Jell-O, which I eat precisely a gallon of. I am not good enough. I will never be good enough. I will never live up to the legacy of my dead older brother.
PROS: This would make my driving test just like every other day.
CONS: Jell-O is revolting.
SCENARIO 4:
I drive up, and nothing goes wrong. I pass.
PROS: This is the ultimate goal.
CONS: This has about as much chance of happening as the Dear Evan Hansen movie had of being good when they announced that twenty-seven-year-old Ben Platt would play a seventeen-year-old.
SCENARIO 5:
I drive up. The instructor gets in. She’s about sixty years old and extremely cranky looking, and she tells me to start whenever I’m ready. I’m on the right side of the road, so I don’t turn around and look at my blind spot. I drive into the road, and my instructor immediately tells me that I did something wrong. Panicked, I hit the brakes, and she tells me that’s wrong too. I make the first turn, but I make it too wide. She tells me I’m losing control of the car. I turn two more times and ask her if I improved. She tells me no and has me pull over without asking me to parallel park or do a three-point-turn. At this point, it’s only been two minutes. She tells me my results will be available at 6 pm on the DMV website. Then, she turns into Mark Zuckerberg and flies away with wings made of used diapers.
PROS: None.
CONS: Again, the Mark Zuckerberg thing. I don’t die in this scenario, but still. He’s hella fugly.
My road test is scheduled for next Friday the 13th. Wish me luck!