I’d aced driver’s education class. OK, not really aced it. More like I cerebrally embraced the concept of safe driving.

But the actual driving part was coming right along, as soon as I passed the state-ordered testing for anyone scoring lower than a C in driving.

Was it my fault that my teacher, the one with the tough reputation, had a trigger-happy foot for braking? He totally abused the extra brake that outfitted the driver’s ed car. Of course I knew I had to actually stop at a stop sign—that the red and white beacon wasn’t a suggestion—but it was a four-way, and no one else was there. He didn’t have to give us all brake-stomp whiplash.

And the golf ball thingamajig was just ridiculous. Who really makes a little Plexiglas box surrounding a green base with a golf tee and then mounts it on the dashboard of a moving vehicle? My driver’s ed teacher. Ideally, a golf ball sat on the tee.

Or it was supposed to, anyway.

After it fell off its perch, the teacher would reset it for the next victim . . . I mean student. I think he graded on how quickly the driver knocked it off the tee.

I prefer to say when it “fell off,” because when I sat in the driver’s seat, I don’t remember ever seeing that dumb ball on the tee in the first place.

My D in driving resulted from my inability to leave the school parking lot with the golf ball on its teeny tiny home and three little teacher brake slams.

Did I run over a cute woodland creature? Nope. Did I endanger senior citizens or pedestrians? Not at all. I simply bruised the golf ball’s ego and stretched some necks a bit.

It’s possible the uncontrollable trembling of my driver’s education teacher was a byproduct of my driving, too. But I think I noticed it before I got behind the wheel.

Parallel Parking 101
Having finally survived my teacher, aka The Golf-Ballinator, the only thing between my license and me was parallel parking. I considered parallel parking to be like extreme math problems: not really necessary unless you loved the whole challenge-your-brain idea. I just figured I’d find a parking spot that didn’t require parallel parking, or I could always search for one that had at least two back-to-back spaces so I could just drive in and straighten up.

The state and my dad had different ideas. My dad didn’t have a golf ball. He didn’t need one.

Of course, the big parallel parking practice day was a family event. My much younger and very annoying brothers sat in the back with my mom. First mistake. My brothers tended to be up there with the sound of screeching microphone feedback on the nerve-frazzle scale. So Dad, already threatening my brothers with dire and creative threats, was primed for frustration.

Second mistake. Communication issues. My dad gives solid directions, but the instructions often lacked clarity.

The directions were a lot like this: “Turn!”

If you’re parallel-parking-challenged, as I am, you might wonder, like me, Turn what? Where?

Usually, Dad would increase in volume. “Turn!” Followed by “Not that way!”

It went downhill from there.

Needless to say, the practice session got a little wet as I bawled, punctuating his commands with blubbering and tears. My brothers picked up a bunch of great one-liners, which became ammunition to torture me every time I had a date.

But, later that week, I scored a driver’s license.

The examiner didn’t have me parallel park.

Since this fateful series of encounters I’ve discovered that parallel parking is a lot like calculus—you don’t run into it very often.

So spare yourself the learn-to-drive-blues and take it from me: golf balls are best left on the green, and little brothers should not be back-seat drivers. And if for some strange reason you actually need to parallel park, my only advice to is to pray . . . and hope for better luck in calculus class!