Shelby, ” Mom, please don’t talk, gasp, groan, cry out or exhale loudly and please turn your cell phone off”

Mamma Me, ” I swear, you won’t hear a peep outta me. I pledge a vow of silence”

Shelby, “In fact, make sure you sit behind my seat, not behind the Driving Test guy. That way I won’t even see a fraction of your face. I’m sooooo nervous and you make it a thousand times worse” (she’s nervous?? I took a Valium before we left the house)

We arrive for the official Driving Test, so that my daughter can pass with flying colors and be a driver licenced card carrying citizen.  

Drivers Test Dude, “Ok, we are going to pull out of the parking lot. You’re going to look to your left to check for traffic, and then turn right.”

I have hunkered down in the backseat of my car directly behind Shelby. I have buckled up, and although I’ve taken a vow of silence for the duration of this 20 minute driving test, I chant a few Hail Mary’s (there’s no rule that states you must be Catholic to borrow a fantastic notion, right?) I’m worried before we even leave the parking lot. Shelby, who bless her sweet soul, can be extremely nervous when she’s doing something uncomfortable. She wrings her hands and fidgets, she becomes painfully quiet and bites her bottom lip. She’s been doing that for over an hour prior to showing up to take the drivers test. At this point in time I can feel the nerves vibrating off her like the string on a guitar being played by a 8o’s heavy metal rockstar.  

She eases the car out of the parking lot and starts to turn left…

Driver test Dude, “Stop, stop,” (might as well have been a cops siren)

Shelby slams the break which lurches all three of us forward, not enough to cause whiplash, but enough that Test Dudes clipboard goes flying off his lap. I immediately slink a little lower in my seat and cast my eye’s to the floorboards. Vow of silence has not been broken, score one for the Mother, but I’m incredibly worried about my kid now. If she had any nerves left, I’m pretty certain they just short circuited.

Test Dude, sorta calmly, ”I said, look to your left and turn right. Now, put the car in reverse, back up, then lets try that again and turn right.”

So this is what I know, and during moments when your life suddenly passes before your eye’s, things can get distorted, but I shall try here. Shelby put my car into reverse, she lightly put the gas on and started to back up. All systems go. At that point in time I was still looking at my floorboards thinking I should have them shampooed and I remember the Dude saying, “Stop now.” ( so this is my guess, she was already panicked/jumpy about the first stop, so when he did that, she went to slam the break again, but instead slammed the gas)

So suddenly, there was a reverse  acceleration at a G-force rate of speed backwards into the parking lot. If anyone has ever wondered…. if that whole exorcist head turning on it’s spine in a 180 degree maneuver is possible, I’m here to say,  it is. I don’t think my body moved, but my head spun around to guesstimate what she was going to total my sweet sports car into. My fingers made permanent indentation’s into the leather seats, but by God, I didn’t scream out “OHHH FUCK” or “GOODBYE LIFE” or anything at all! (score two) But Holy Hell, Drivers Test Guy made up for my mandatory silence. He started screaming, “BREAK BREAK BREAK STOP BREAK STOP.” I imagine his foot was flailing for the emergency foot break on the right side of the car, but since they make these kids take the test in their parents car, no dice for him.

With inches (seriously, teenie tiny inches, all I could see out the back window was looming tailgate) to spare, Shelby stopped the car before plowing into the back of a parked pickup truck. We then had 3 seconds of painful silence broken only by Freaked Out Driver Test Dude pulling the emergency break (a little late), unlocking his seat belt and flinging his door open so he could make a dive for it in case the car became possessed again. And my poor Shelby. She was slumped over the steering wheel and I could see her little shoulders moving up and down, hair cloaking her face. I had no idea what would happen next and the silence was killing me.

Drivers Test Dude with a Heart to my silent crying daughter, “Would you like a tissue?”

Believe it or not, after 10 minutes of soul searching, in car therapy and a reassuring hand from the back seat on her shoulder. Shelby was able to finally pull out of the parking lot and ace the actual driving test. She lived. I lived. Test Dude lived and my car lived.

No innocent bystanders (THANK GAWD) were harmed in the making of this infamous Mommyhood memory.