Professor Dilibeck
Composition 1
9-8-13
The Orange Cones of Death
All of my friends were out driving and I hadn't even begun my journey yet. I sat through the long, torturous 24 hours of driving school, I had overcome all of my in car driving assessments and had received my certificate of completion from Ace Driving School. And all I could think of, was how badly I was going to fail my drivers test, and how I wanted to get my license already! Funny thing was, I didn't even have anywhere to go!
On the morning of July 19, 2012 I woke up to go out, and practice maneuverability for my upcoming drivers test later in the afternoon. I was so nervous for it that I didn't even want to get out of bed. The radiating nausea, crippling weakness of my body, the throbbing of my head, and the pounding heart were enough to make me stay in bed and just forget about my test. Though, I eventually began my dreary crawl the the bathroom to get ready. After wasting about and hour of time delaying my trip through those forever hateful orange cones, I was finally able to dragged from the house and forced into the car by my mom who was more than ready for me to get the test over with.
We drove up the street to Hayes High School. The school is 30 seconds away from our house but the ride there was just enough to get the anxiety to settle in the pit of my stomach. We drove around the back to the parking lot, and I couldn't help but to stop and look over the vacant sea of black. That was when I realized that the next time I would have to do this, would be for my test. Which at this point felt like it was a matter of life or death.
We got out of the car and set up the cones in the parking lot just as I had done with the driving instructors. I had done this many times, but this time I felt deserted, like there was nothing and no one else in the world but me, the cones, and the car I was sitting in.
Backing the car up cautiously, stopping, I began the journey forward, towards the cones of death and ran over the edge of a cone right off of the bat. Restarting, successfully pulled forward through the cones, and all that I had to do now ,was back up the same way that I pulled in. I knocked over a cone. Reversing to the starting point, I got out, set the cone back up, and went for another attempt. The same thing happened, about 10 more times. “This just isn't working.” I said frustrated.“All you've got to do is have the mindset that you can do it, and you will” my mom said.
My mind was set. I wanted to get through these cones a couple of times perfectly so I could get out of there. If I wasn't nervous enough in thinking I couldn't do it before, here I was on attempt 16, and I really couldn't do it! So I tried a different approach, I told her to get out of the car. She got out and stood with her arms crossed watching. I began to pull forward and it hit me that I knew what I was missing! Music! I put the car in park, rolled down the windows and turned on Crew Love by Drake, and began to pull forward. I made it, now just to back up. I did it! Then I did it again, 7 more times. My mom finally said, “You know you not going to be able to listen to music while you're taking your test, and you're going to have someone in the car with you, you can't be by yourself.”
She got back in, I turned the music off. With the song continuing to play in my head, I pulled forward and then backward, no mistakes. I repeated this 3 more times and decided I was confident enough to settle my nerves about taking my test. I stopped the car, loaded the cones into the trunk and drove home. Now I had to wait for the time to go by until I had to take the test that would change the rest of my life.
The time had come. My appointment to take my test was at 1:00 pm. We got there about 12:30 which meant more waiting. That was probably the longest half hour of my life. It was just enough time to get me nervous again, and then it was my turn. I followed the test proctor out into the parking lot where I was ready to begin, when she said that we were going to begin with maneuverability. Nervously, I pulled the car forward and put Drake back into my head. I said out loud to myself “You can do this!” And you know what? I did! Perfectly! No problems, and the fastest I had ever done it before! The rest of the test was a piece of cake and I received my license!
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