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My first driving experience was much like my first sexual experience I was nervous and clueless, it wasn't as easy as it looked in the movies, and I certainly didn't impress anyone with my skill level the first time out. However, both firsts were very meaningful to me and each will forever hold a sentimental place in my heart. Sparing you the awkward details of a teenage sexual awakening, I will, instead, focus on the absurdity of allowing an adolescent to take the wheel of a two thousand pound metal death trap.

Whereas the romantic notion of expanded personal freedom motivated most of my peers to learn how to drive, my inspiration came from the much less noble flames of jealousy. At the time of my first driving lesson, my parents, sisters and I had just returned home to upstate New York after visiting our extended relatives in the Midwest. It was the end of the summer and I had just celebrated my 14th birthday - the birthday I vowed I would not be outdone by my midwestern cousins.

Originally from Michigan, my parents left the farms of their youth to raise their three daughters, of which I'm the oldest, on the east coast. Throughout my childhood, my nuclear family of five would make our annual pilgrimage to "the old country". Every year, without fail, we piled into the car and drove from our east coast home to America's heartland to visit our extended rellies. And every year, without fail, my cousins managed to find great delight in noting the differences between our vocabulary and accents. Their "pop" had a strong home court advantage and easily defeated my "soda". And, let's be honest, no one outside of the northeast will ever quite comprehend the use of "wicked" as a positive adjective (e.g., "This soda is wicked good!").

Throughout my pre-teen years, any feelings of inadequacy I may have had because of these insignificant differences quickly subsided and my cousins and I spent the majority of my visits bonding over our shared childhood interests: climbing trees, playing in my grandma's barn, sneaking into forbidden rooms, and lying to the grown-ups about doing any of the aforementioned.

In the summer of 1989, as our New York-plated automobile bounded across the Michigan state line, I playfully reviewed the list of clever comebacks I had compiled since the previous year's visit in preparation for my cousins' inevitable comments regarding my regional dialect. Little did I know the game had changed and my cousins were now holding the mother of all teenage trump

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