A Year Or Two From Now, I'm Sure We'll All Have A Good Laugh...

I swear to God, this whole driver's ed thing is going to kill me. I will die of a stroke, or a massive heart attack, but before my little darling gets her official license, something will kill me.
On the suggestion of her instructor, we hit the hilly back roads of suburbia today. Teenzilla needs practice on how to maintain speed behind the wheel.
"You're biggest problem is that you live in the city," said her driving teacher. "Too much stop and go, too many traffic lights. You need to get her on the open road."
"You need to get me a prescription for Valium," I said.
The male parental unit in this whole scenario is doing just fine, thank you. That's because he hasn't taken the child out once to sharpen her driving skills. He figures one shotgun riding parent is enough, apparently. But he tries to offer his own bizarre shot at support.
"You really should thank your mom for helping you learn to drive," he recently told the child. "She's putting her life on the line every time she goes out with you."
Yep, this truly makes me feel so much better...
So, we hit the country roads thinking it would be so much more relaxing than dealing with those crazy city drivers. Not really. Out in the burbs, pretty hills and all, the posted speed limit signs are merely a suggestion. My poor kid followed the rules and became the magnet for every rude horse's ass sharing the road with her. We had one guy who followed us for about a mile or so, right on our tail, because there was no place where he could pass us. At a stop sign, my daughter came to a full and complete stop, as she'd learned in class, and in the rear view mirror could see the idiot saluting her with a variety of lovely hand gestures and single digit salutes.
First of all, my daughter may be inexperienced, but she's totally at ease behind the wheel. And while she is a safe and conscientious student driver, she also thinks she knows everything there is to know about driving, which of course, scares the hell out of me. She's been driving since the end of January, for crying out loud, so why wouldn't she know everything?!
And as I've repeatedly told her, it's really not her driving that leaves my heart wedged in my esophagus, it's the other crazies on the road.

Permitted

Yesterday I took my almost sixteen year old daughter to the MVA to get her learner's permit to operate a motor vehicle. She started driver's training school last week and we have to tally some actual driving hours to pass the fourteen week course ( I say 'we' because she's not allowed behind the wheel without a licensed adult family member).

A couple of things I'd like to note:
Maybe it's me, but I am completely floored by the fact that a teenager, or any potential new driver for that matter, can be handed a driving permit without actually having spent any time in the driver's seat. My memory is fuzzy, but I think when I went through driver's ed a thousand years ago, you had to complete the entire driver's training course before you earned your permit. Times have changed, apparently!
Also, in order to get the permit, my daughter had to bring, along with her birth certificate and social security card, her school attendance record. MVA officials told me it had to be in a sealed envelope with the school seal stamped on front. Fine, no problem. I certainly understood their concern about kids tampering with the paperwork in order to get a permit. However...

The clerk behind the counter took the envelope from my daughter and immediately eyed it suspiciously.
"I'm going to have to find two of my superiors to confirm this envelope hasn't been opened," she said. "I'll be right back."
Mom, I did not open that envelope," said my daughter, sensing my presumed guilty before being found innocent stance on anyone under the age of twenty. "It's been in my backpack for a week."
This explained its less than stellar appearance.
Fortunately, the Motor Vehicle Gestapo deemed the envelope untouched and my daughter breezed through the vision and written exams, and walked out the door with her new driver's permit in hand.
And now the fun begins...