The Racket of San Angelo: Concluded

[Catch up here]

Today I took the Defensive Driving Course (DDC). I'm not going to include everything I have to say about it; I don't want to get all pissed off and then try to go to bed. I wrote a lot about it during class, and I'm surprised that my frenzied and furious scribbling didn't alert the teacher. Then again, no, it doesn't.

My complaints about this class boil down to two: 1) the teacher and 2) the "requirement" that the course has to be six hours long. It has to be. That's the rule, and maybe even the law. I can't remember.

The contents of this class could have easily been executed in two hours. But we had to be there for six. Six! The state of Texas not only extorts money from its unruly drivers but tortures them as well!

My class notes list the teacher under several sobriquets: drill sergeant (initial instructions), flight attendant (floor plan), preacher evangelist, barker, Mr. Brady and Don Vito (these last four for the duration of the class).

First off, let me educate those of you who don't watch MTV and wondering who the hell Don Vito is. He's the fella over there on the right. On the show "Viva la Bam" Bam Margera and friends harrass his parents and his uncle, Don Vito. When Don Vito gets all worked up, his speech turns into an unintelligible garble. The producers have kindly included a translation on the screen for Don Vito's rants, but they're not always helpful. When they can't figure out what he's saying, they'll wing it or just put "engu dorfin alit" or whatever for the parts they couldn't make out.

The two hours of "useful" information covered in this course came from videos and our handy dandy DDC Guide. We didn't go through every page, but our teacher read to us what we did. He talked so fast that his speech turned into a low, annoying hum, and my eyes couldn't keep up, not even scanning, and since I couldn't understand any of his garbling, I had to read it.

For the four hours of the class not consumed by videos and the DDC Guide, our teacher had a captive audience. Remember, we had to be there for six hours. We heard story after story of his driving this car between this place and that place, or driving this other car -- with this history and aren't we impressed that his tars cost that much? -- on this road to visit this person -- who is related to him in this way -- to do this activity. He looked at his watch a lot, too, and seemed to talk faster after doing so, as if he needed to make up more time to fit in more stories.

Each of his stories were relevant, and he made sure we knew this by putting on a Mr. Brady act at the end of each one. I'll share one, transcribed early in class when he was still somewhat intelligible (and I listening and not writing things in my guide like "Oh my God, please make this stop.").

"You know folks, it doesn't matter how pretty you are, or how much money you have, or how much land you own, or how big your house is. When you are the victim in a fatal accident, you are just as dead as the next one."

Poignant, too, no?

Fine paid to San Angelo Municipal Court: $95.00
Fee for Defensive Driving Course: $25.00
Hours from my life lost that I will never get back and may give me nightmares: 6

Comments

[LadyBug]

Ah, so now you're wishing you'd gone the online route, huh? Nice to get out of the house, yes, but spending SIX HOURS with the garbling goon? Not so much, I guess.

[mrtl]

Lady Bug, I saved $15 dollars by spending my time with that garbling goon, one of which is going to Bug for your f-bomb. (I think I'm starting a bad precedent here. People may think it's funny to come and drop a bunch of f-bombs on my comments. That would not be acceptable. This is the last time I'll do this. From now on I will personally edit people's comments to replace their f-bombs with something more decent.)