Guess who drove me home on Tuesday night?

My sister Fatima!

Now for those of you who don't know her, that statement brings no surprise. But for those of you who do know my sister, as well as the history of the females in my family, then you'd be surprised, and probably pretty impressed.

The thing is, my sister doesn't have a driver's license, and she's in her mid 20's. Of course, it's not a bad thing, it's just a personal choice that she has. She has just never needed to drive.

We've got something close to a family curse, where no females in our family have gotten their driver's license when they were in highschool. I'm not sure why - I got mine when I was 19, my sister Claudine was in her 20's, my cousin Marilyn still needs to get one, my cousin Marian was in her 20's as well.

Although I took the required driving class when I was in highschool, we weren't required to actually get our licenses. I was planning on getting it, but after a red light misshap (who would have thought that two interections with red lights would be so close together?) I didn't feel like going in to take an extra lesson, so I never went for my license. However, when I was in college, I dated this guy who lived about 15 minutes away from my house by car. Since I didn't drive, he would pick me up when we'd go out. He'd also pick me out when we were just hanging out at his place. After a while, he got pretty tired of having to make that trip back and forth, so he told me that if I didn't get my license, I would have to take the bus. Being stubborn, I took the bus. So the 15 minute trip to his place ended up being an hour and half by bus. I did that a couple times, but then realized I had to suck it up and get my license.

So each of us has had our own reasons for putting off the whole license thing. I'm happy that Fatima's making the effort to get her license now. I had gone over to her place to pick her and Marilyn up to have a sleepover at my place. Since my car is getting on in years (when Claudine was first learning how to drive, I stated that she could never drive my car, or something like that) I'm not as protective of my car as I was before. So I asked her if she wanted to drive, and although she was a little surprised that I offered, she agreed.

We drove back to my house, which involved some city driving, a LOT of crazy merges, one toll and 3 different highways. She did great, although there were one or two times when I needed to squeese the door handle just a little tighter. However, at no time did I press the imaginary passenger side brake, which is what my dad used to do when I was learning how to drive (and still does to this day).

So the last one that needs to get their license is Marilyn and then there are no more females left in our family, so the curse should be over...that is, until I have a baby girl!

Posted by Yano at June 7, 2007 03:06 PM

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