LEARNING TO DRIVE BY IFEOLUWA OLUSANYA

LEARNING TO DRIVE 

It has been said to me on several occasions that I'm a weirdo and I know it's true because I don't think I'm your regular kind of teenager as I would rather stay in my room and dissect engines and machines than go for high school parties or hang out with friends. My love for machinery started when I was just five years old. I would always want to know what my toy cars and trucks were made up of. 

Now I'm 18 and preparing for College as I got my admission already, and I'm so into engines' development. Of course, I am intelligent. I bet it comes in handy when all you spend your time doing is reading and channeling your focus to engines and machinery. I got admitted to study mechanical engineering because of all machines I've come across. The car is my favorite.

I finished college about a year ago, and I missed my prom. Yeah, I did because no one wanted a goofy kid as a date, and I was busy building my toy car empire. Going to a party would only wear me out and yield nothing at the end of the day. 

When I mentioned earlier that I wasn't your regular teenager, I was not talking about my looks. I look quite right, at least girls who didn't know how nerdy I could be spared me a few glances, and I even got laid once, but it's just not my thing. Except hopefully, I'll get one who's very good with what I do too, and we could work together, but so far, I'd rather be on my own. 

On the other hand, my parents are another story entirely. My dad was a bank manager and rarely stayed at home. At the same time, my mother managed a pharmacy store in the city's suburb, so nobody minded what I was doing or what I wasn't doing except for a couple of times when my dad called me at night to ask for my school results. This was way back, though, as my parents got used to my distinctions every time and so they never bothered about my results. I've always been a good kid from the onset, so they had no cause for alarm. 

I usually stayed at home all the time doing my thing with all the engines in the house until they came home in the night and we had dinner, it was the same routine every day. I was quite used to it.

When I was about ten years old my mother would scream anytime she came home and noticed that something had been disconnected somewhere, it first started with the television remotes, and then it graduated into the microwave and then she lost interest in it because I always ended up fixing it back, I usually worked hard on that. Always. 

I'm not a loner per se, and I had a friend. His name is Alex. If I were told sometimes before Alex and I became friends that we would be this close, I would have had severe doubts about it because we were total opposites, but I guess the saying that opposites attract is true then because in this case...it's true. 

I had gone with my mother for a carnival in the neighborhood when I met him, we didn't attend the same school, but we lived just meters from each other. He initiated the friendship as I was usually an introvert, and the bond got stronger from there. We started visiting each other and got familiar with each other's parents. Being friends with him, he kept me updated on everything that happened on social media and taught me everything I needed to know about girls and high school while I, in turn, kept him updated with what he needed to know to keep his school grades up. In this manner, we were both balanced. If there was one thing we had in common, though, it was our love to arrange and rearrange engines and machines, the only difference being that I had a little more knowledge than he did, and I didn't spare him the boasting. He got used to it anyway, and we were okay. He usually boasted about getting laid too, so we were even. 

My dad had promised me a car as a gift for graduating College in flying colors, but he lost his job just when I was almost done with my exams. It was so unexpected that it affected him psychologically and emotionally, and so I didn't even have the guts to remind him about my car. 

But if there was one thing I've always envisaged, it was driving my car. I didn't even know how to drive because I've always felt that there wasn't a need for it since I didn't have mine yet, but it seemed like I had to learn it first before I got it. 

I wasn't studying for any exams or tests anymore, I had till Christmas to cool my nerves before school resumes in January and so the least I could do on my own was learn how to drive well. And that I'm going to do, on my own, of course. 

I have no options, anyways. My mum would be in her store already. She resumed early and closed late, and now that my dad was unemployed, she made sure to get every income she could find to help the family. I wanted to pick up a job sometimes back myself, but my dad advised against it because I had less than three months at home and so there were two unemployed adult men in the house.

I was going to learn about Alex's car. Yeah, he knows how to drive, and that was part of the things he boasted of whenever he was with me. He talked about it at every opportunity he gets. I bet it'll end soon anyway because I'll probably be better than him as I tend to grasp things a bit faster than my peers. This assisted me in school work. 

My dad became the shadow of his former self since he lost his job, and if I were closer to him before, it could probably affect me, but right now, I can only watch him from a distance and wish he had lived in a better manner. I wouldn't want to ever go through what he's going through right now, so I would not work for anyone for long. I prefer my own company... An engineering factory to be precise. 

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