Driving Miss Lainey, Part Two

This week, I continued my career as an amatuer driver's education instructor.  I took Teen Wolf out for two more driving lessons.  We put in four hours of drive time the first day, double the length of our first lesson.  When I asked him why he wanted to be out for so long, he told me that he had to get eighteen hours of driving time in each month so that he wouldn't lose the bet he had going with his boss. 

It seems that in an effort to motivate our young unwilling driver, the boss made a small wager with Teen Wolf.  Teen Wolf needs sixty hours of driving time accompanied by an experienced driver before he can take the driver's test.  If Teen Wolf got his needed driving time in by the end of summer, then everyone in the office (the entirely male office, I might add) would where a dress to work for one day.  If Teen Wolf didn't get his requisite driving time in by the end of summer, then Teen Wolf would have to wear a dress to work for one day.  I'm thinking either the boss doesn't have much faith in Teen Wolf getting the job done by Labor Day or else he has a flair for cross dressing that he wants to enjoy at work for a day.

The Gender Bender Bet: 
Much needed motivation or a cruel joke against the office newbie?

The boss' strategy seems to be working because in two days I spent six hours in my car being chauffuered around by Teen Wolf.  He seemed much more confident this time around.  Teen Wolf was also much more in control of the car.  He had no trouble staying on his side of the road and the twitchy steering was no longer evident.  His control and confidence convinced me that we had advanced beyond practicing in parking lots and cruising around the neighborhood.  It was time to take this show on the road!

We started small with winding two lane country roads.  I figured there would be less pressure on Teen Wolf as the back roads would have less traffic and lower speeds than the local thouroughfares and highways.  Plus, that's what my parents did with me when I was learning how to drive.  Why endanger whole highways full of people with a teenage driver when you can drive around the countryside endangering white picket fences and cows instead, right?

The country road needs to take us home
 because I've gotten us horribly lost.

Apparently, it's been a while since I drove around my local country roads because I managed to get us terribly lost after an hour of driving through the sticks.  We drove down a tiny country lane that I thought connected two larger country byways, but we must have missed a turn somewhere because after forty five minutes driving aimlessly down the same road we came out down by the water at the southern edge of the county.  Luckily, I knew where we were once we reemerged into civilization, so I directed Teen Wolf back towards home via more widely traveled, conventional roads.

We had been driving for two and a half hours by the time we made it back to town.  Teen Wolf made his request to extend our driving time for the day and offered to buy me lunch to sweeten the deal.  We skipped the packed parking lot at our favorite local fast food restaurant and opted for a less popular, but also less crowded option next door.  I ordered, Teen Wolf paid, and we sat down to enjoy our lunch.

I've probably spent more one on one time with Teen Wolf in the last three weeks than I've spent with him in the previous three years and I'm discovering that he's a pretty cool kid.  He has a good head on his shoulders and a fairly good idea of what he wants to be when he grows up.  As we've been driving along, he's told me about his plans for the summer, all the exciting adventures he's having at his part time job, and most interestingly about the girl at the office that he's been crushing on recently.

I freely admit that I was completely unprepared for the conversation that occurred during our lunch break.  While sitting at the table, enjoying our Whoppers, Teen Wolf asked me how he could tell if a girl liked him.  Oh boy!  When did I become the trusted purveyor of love and dating advice?

He was being so sincere.  It was beyond cute.  I told him that if a girl laughed at his jokes, she probably liked him.  He countered with the "what if I'm just being really funny" argument.  So I told him he would have to look for other signs, like if she smiled at him a lot, went out of her way to talk to him, or attended non-work events that she knew he would be attending.

He absorbed this new insight while finishing his fries and I texted my honey (a.k.a. Teen Wolf's honorary uncle).  He agreed with the laughing at his jokes tip and added that it was even more telling if the jokes in question were corny or not really funny.  Then he added a few tips that made me laugh because they were all things I had done before we first started going out, such as "If she throws Bailey's chocolates at you, then she likes you," or "If she smacks you with her shoe for talking during a movie, then she likes you." Guilty on both counts.

Sorry, guys! Girls aren't going to make it easy for you
by putting up a sign like this.

We finished off the first day of driving by cruising by Mr. Mynd's office (so that Teen Wolf could show his dad how well he was driving) and getting lost on the way home.  Winding country roads are confusing.  What can I say?