As I was saying, learning to drive in the country provides one with a distinct set of skills. Unfortunately, these don't always translate to city driving. For example, I learned to stop at stop signs, even in isolated intersections, because you never can tell when your neighbor is going to be taking his new Thunderbird out for a spin at 120 miles/hour with one hand on the can of Bud tucked between his legs and the other wandering up his girlfriend's blouse in the passenger seat. He's not going to stop, so as a sign of respect for his new car, you come to a halt and make sure he's not around before proceeding. This is known as "defensive driving."

Also, I learned to look out for cows. At the base of the mountain where I grew up, there was a vast farm with scores of cows, which were always arrayed like magnetized metal filings in the fields along side the road. From time to time, the farmers would move the cows from one field to another, which involved herding them all out into the road and then running them up the road by honking and shouting from a large tractor behind them. It was a narrow, twisty road, which I always drove at ludicrously dangerous speeds. It is difficult to describe the emotions one experiences when one roars gleefully around a tight turn, to be confronted with the wide terrified eyes of a large herd of cattle, filling the entire roadway, on a direct collision course. Less alarming, but just as disturbing, is coming around a turn and finding the cows headed away from you, in the same direction of travel, which means you're going to be stuck for the next several minutes crawling along and staring at their puckering and pooping behinds until they reach the new field. Remaining calm in such situations is a crucial skill for the rural driver.

In the city, stopping at a stop sign is a display of weakness. In the eyes of your fellow drivers, you practically deserve to have someone open your driver's side door and tell you to get the fuck out of the car, and drive away with it, because you're clearly out of your league.

Susan and I were sitting around on the front steps last night, drinking hooch and watching darkness fall, when Julia walked by. Reedy and allegedly Irish, Julia is one of the rare doctoral students who can keep up an interesting conversation on topics other than her field of study. She retains strangely little of her former brogue, but is clearly not American: at 31, she doesn't know how to drive. We were offering to teach her someday, and she said she needed to go to the DMV and take her "learner's permit" test.

District of Columbia Learner's Permit Examination
Section 2: Supplemental Questions

D riving in the District of Columbia demands special skill and knowledge, please answer the following questions.

1) While driving south on 23rd Street next to the State Department building, you notice a large sedan with Wisconsin plates full of terrified tourists who are clearly lost. They are crawling along in the right-hand lane, and traffic is piling up behind them. You both stop at a red light. What do you do?

a) Roll down your passenger side window and give them directions to the Mall.
b) When the light turns green, keep pace with them and force them to stay in the right hand turn lane, so they'll have to turn and cross the bridge into Virginia where they belong.
c) Stop? At a red light?

2) Please describe the route you would take from the intersection of 16th Street and Florida Avenue, NW, to the Lincoln Memorial.

a) Go W on Florida to P St., E on P St. to Rock Creek parkway, and follow Parkway South, unless it's 4-6:30 PM, when Rock Creek Parkway is closed to Southbound traffic.
b) Go W on Florida, turn S on 17th St., and follow 17th St. down to Constitution (jogging one block W at K Street), unless it's between the hours of 7-10:30 AM, when fleets of delivery trucks make 17th Street impassible, or 4-6:30 PM, when you would be prohibited from turning W from K Street onto southbound 17th Street.
c) both a and b
d) Why would I want to go to the Lincoln Memorial?

3) Describe your reaction to this sign. a) "They can't possibly mean me." b) "This will just take a second." c) "I'm sorry officer, but I'm color blind and can't see red."

Please answer the following questions (T)rue of (F) alse:

T	F	Riding the Metro is basically like admitting you're too much of a wuss to drive in the District.
T	F	Your horn is your only tool, short of a firearm, to correct the mistakes of your fellow drivers.
T	F	Double-parking is allowed in the downtown area if one is wearing a very expensive suit.
T	F	Contesting a wrongful parking ticket is an extraordinarily unpleasant process, demanding that you take entire days off from work to sit in a crowded, loud courtroom and wait for the inefficient judicial system to grind its plodding way towards your case, so don't try it.