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My old driving instructor
December 23rd, 2006 at 20:01
Have I ever told you about my old driving instructor? No? Then gather round, kids.
He was a funny old man. He was 64 when he taught me to drive, and he had all of the age based stereotypes to go along with it. He complained about his ailments, complained about the youth of today- telling me how being a student is a “waste of time” and how I was just “leeching off the state”, and he was a bit racist too.
I say a bit racist: he’d point out black people when he saw them and draw comparisons with monkeys, that sort of thing. Yeah, I thought comments like that died out in about 1930 too. He once spent an entire ninety minute driving lesson telling me racist jokes, and this is unfortunately no exaggeration.
“What does God say when a black person is born?”, he’d say (he told me this joke a number of times)…. “Whoops, burnt another one”- and then worst of all, he’d wait for a reaction, and sort of lean towards me expecting me to burst into fits of laughter.
The trouble was, I didn’t know how to react. I mean, do I confront him over his horrific views? Bearing in mind he was basically in charge of my life, as I was trapped in a car with him, and I was driving around small country lanes ideal for dumping a body, or around towns I was unfamiliar with. I generally opted for a sort of “groaning” noise, as if to say “that’s not funny, you awful racist”, but in a fun way.
What made it worse that on the few occasions where I actually considered what was going on: the fact that I was trying to pilot an automobile through town centre traffic whilst an old man made comments that would look out of place in a BNP manifesto, I actually laughed at him. The absurdity of the situation was funny- the trouble is, he interpretted this as me saying “I find your jokes that perpetuate racist stereotypes amusing, please tell me some more”, so he dutifully complied with my, er, request.
He’d protest when he sensed that I was perhaps not enjoying his humour as much as him “I’m not racist”, he’d repeatedly tell me, “I know as many white jokes as black jokes”, he’d say, before telling me yet another ‘black joke’. This happened constantly.
He was a bit sexist too- he’d often make comments like “look at the arse on her” towards women aged anywhere between like, 14 and 70. He’d also point out the opposite: “look at her, she’s built like a brick shit house“, he said to me on a number of occasions. Needless to say that I tried to remain focused on the task at hand (driving!) as much as possible.
Once, he made me pull up at the side of the road so that he could point at a pedestrian walking along and ask me “do you think he’s gay?”, based entirely on the way in which the pedestrian was walking. Seriously.
I suppose the worst part is that he wasn’t even a very good instructor. It was 15 months before I attempted my first test, and I failed that anyway. I got a new instructor a few weeks later. I think I’d blame his teaching equally as much as my ineptitude at driving for it taking me far too long to learn to drive.
He was a weird old man.
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