Driving with Mrs. Whitt was terrifying. Mrs. Whitt was terrifying. She was also the county’s sole certified Behind The Wheel driving instructor. Mrs. Whitt, a chain-smoking, sixty-something year old bus driver, was famous for both her short-fuse teaching style and oddly dark sense of humor. While I had heard plenty of stories from other kids, I didn’t pay them too much attention–they seemed far too embellished to be true. I soon found out, however, that they weren’t quite as off-base as I’d originally hoped. . . .
For a 16-year-old who had spent roughly one eternity waiting to be licensed, the three days it took to complete Behind The Wheel could not end soon enough. Three consecutive days of on-the-road driving instruction culminated in a two-part exam on the third day, where, if you passed, you would receive a temporary 90-day license.
I wanted to quit after the first day.
If Sheri (my driving partner) or I moved our hands out of the correct wheel holding position, Mrs. Whitt yelled at us. If we went even one mile over the speed limit, she yelled. If she thought we weren’t going to slow down in time for the next speed sign, she yelled, or slammed on her master brake, or both (usually both). All of this was punctuated by her loud, vehement smoker’s cough. Usually, it was just a cough here and there, but every now and then, she’d have a real doozy of a coughing fit that shook her whole body. It was a little unsettling to be in the driver’s seat when one of these came on, because she’d still try to talk to yell at you while it was happening. I wasn’t sure if I should be worried or not, so I’d look over at her, and she’d yell, “Eyes (cough) on the (cough) road! (Cough, cough) Eyes on the ROAD!” After an especially bad coughing fit, she said, “If I die in here, just shove me out of the car and keep driving. Just leave me. Drive until you run out of gas.”
On day 2 of Behind The Wheel, we approached a stoplight while in the far right lane. There was an arrow on the light indicating a driver could either turn or continue through the intersection from the lane were in. Mrs. Whitt wanted us to go straight, so I continued on through the intersection. Suddenly, Mrs. Whitt yelled, “I said we were going STRAIGHT! You have to make a right here!”, grabbed the wheel, and yanked me into a right turn, scratching her arm on my fingernail in the process. “Now look what you did!” she yelled, while, at the same time, I yelled, “What are you DOING?!” I had never yelled at someone 40-plus years my senior before, and (surprise!) it did not go over well. She made me pull over to the side of the road, then proceeded to shout at me some more; interestingly enough, it was less my being in the “wrong” lane that infuriated her so much, and more the fact that she’d cut herself on my fingernail.
While I knew I wasn’t the world’s best teenage driver (I’ve got the insurance records to prove it), I did know that in this particular situation, I had done nothing wrong, and my stubborn streak of teenage pride wasn’t about to back down. After she finished yelling, I explained to her, as calmly as I could, why I tried to go straight, and why it was legal.
She didn’t believe me. In fact, she was so sure of herself, a small seed of doubt had begun to grow in my own mind.
In an attempt to validate her claims, she had me turn around and drive back to the intersection we’d just left. As we drove by, we both saw that everything in the lane was exactly as I said it was (Thank God). She conceded that I hadn’t really done anything wrong, “technically”, but went on to say that, in the future, I should stick to the lane with the straight arrow only. It was hard for her to admit defeat outright, so she danced around it. I didn’t mind—either way, we both knew that I was right.
The rest of Behind The Wheel continued uneventfully after that. She still yelled, coughed, and slammed on her brake plenty, but unless my ears were fooling me, she seemed a bit more gentle than she’d been before. When the time came for us to take the final test, I scored a 96 overall, and Mrs. Whitt told Sheri and I that she was proud of us, and wasn’t worried about us killing anyone on the road at all. I guess even she knew that once you’ve Survived The Whitt, you can survive anything.
All Mixed Up 