Range and paper test complete all I had to do was wait for my turn on
the ride along car for a road test. I was signed up to take my test
about three weeks before my birthday so when I was finished I just
had to wait the time and then get my license on my birthday. The plan
was sound, even brilliant. I made the mistake of many a plan-trustee
and trusted in the plan. The day I was going to get my driving test
at 5pm I figured that I could go rock climbing with some friends of
mine and my mom would have plenty of time to come and get me and all
would be well. I was nervous that my mom, a notorious forgetter of
important things would play true to her nature and forget me so I
drilled he on the fact that I would be rock climbing in Rock canyon
and that she would come and pick me and my friends up at three and
take me to my test. I told her at least a dozen times and then wrote
the note on the white board that was near our front door. Then I
asked her again where I would be and when. She was throwing me off
the trail nicely by answering correctly every time and where I was
getting lulled was into a sense of security, and not a true one,
constant reader, not a true one. My friend's mom drove us up to the
canyon that was twenty miles away and we were having a great time
climbing and as three of the clock arrived I was in the parking lot
looking down the road looking for my mom's car it was not that one,
or that one but surely it would be the next. Anyone who has ever been
stood up knows the process of denial and then realization and then
pure furious rage. At four I knew that there was little chance that
she had remembered and a smaller chance that I would get to my test
on time. The meant that I was going to be bumped to the end of the
list and not get my license for a month after my birthday instead of
the day of. By 4:30 I was desperate because now she had not only
forgotten me but the two friends with me who were now without rides
home. There was a kid who lived nearby who was a friend of Rob's so I
decided to walk the two miles to his house and use the phone and yell
at my mom. We got there a little after five and he let us use the
phone but my mom didn't answer, which at my house in no wise
indicated that no one was home. Actually, it was probably more likely
someone was home and ignoring the phone then no one was around. The
psudo-brother's friend's mom saw my obvious distress and offered to
drive may friends and I home and I accepted. When I got home at six
my mom was nowhere to be found. I was absolutely seething with hate
and rage when I decided to go to the root cellar for a jar of calming
home canned peaches, When I was coming back to the house my mom
pulled up, got out of the car and asked where I had been. That is
when I lost it completely. I told her I had been f-wording climbing
in Rock Canyon when I had told her twenty times I would be and that
she had not picked me or my friends up and I had missed my driving
test and had been bumped. She looked confused and said she didn't
know that I was going to be in Rock Canyon so she had gone up
Santaquin Canyon and didn't see me so she went shopping instead. I
screamed at her that is why I had F-wording wrote it on the F-wording
white board and then for emphasis I chucked the glass bottle of
peaches into the wall of the house shattering glass and peaches
everywhere. I went to my room for a little Pearl Jam therapy when my
mom came to apologize. I am not a grudge keeper and I was already
feeling bad for yelling at her. It was obvious she had been crying
and that made me feel even worse. She told me she had just misread
rock climbing in Rock Canyon as rock climbing, rock climbing. I
forgave her and didn't point out that her reading made no sense and
that I had told her verbally many times. I had to talk to the drivers
ed teacher later that night when he got home and he sassed me about
missing my driving test and told me I should have made sure I had a
ride. Yeah, noted, thank-you a-hole. He told me I could drive two
weeks after my birthday and that was better then I thought so I was
not quite so mad or so sad anymore.
