Over the past couple weeks, I have been driving my daughter around to various musical auditions. She is a senior in high school this year and, like most seniors, she has been submitting applications to various colleges. Because she has decided that she wants to major in music while in college, she is required to do two things most college applicants never have to go through. First, she has to listen to everyone she knows telling her that she will never make any money with a music degree. And, second, she must physically go to each of the colleges she applied to and audition with her saxophone before they will decide whether or not to accept her.
And because she has to go to auditions, I have to go to auditions. Part of the reason I go is, of course, to be a supportive dad. But the main reason I go with her is because, simply put, she does not yet have her driver’s license. Yes, you read that correctly. My daughter will be eighteen years-old this year and still doesn’t have her driver’s license.
Why doesn’t she have it? Because she does not want to drive. I am still trying to wrap my head around this one. The day I turned sixteen, I was first in line at the DMV to take my behind-the-wheel test. I couldn’t wait to be driving on my own. Although, I had to come back later for a re-test because … well … this isn’t about me. Let’s get back to the subject at hand.
My daughter told me that she will take the test when she turns eighteen. She wants to wait because when she is eighteen she will not need to do the required driver’s training before she tries for her license. For some reason, in California, if you are under the age of eighteen, you must complete a certain number of hours of practice driving with a certified instructor before you can test for your license. If you are eighteen or older, this requirement goes away.
I must admit, I think this is a moronic rule. Age should never replace actual study and practice. For example, how would you like to go in for surgery and hear the doctor say, “I didn’t go to medical school. I just waited until I was thirty-five, so now I can cut you open and it’s okay.”
Anyway, with no license, and places she needs to be, my daughter requires a chauffeur. Lucky me, I drew the short straw. I get to drive for hours all over the state so she can play her saxophone for ten minutes, and a small group of bored professors can decide if she is good enough to let me and my wife give them all our money.
The auditions might not be so bad if they would let me sit in the room and listen to her play. But, no. That might be a “distraction.” As if they suspect I might be standing in the back of the room with an air horn and a banner that says, “That’s my girl!” Okay, I might, but the point is they never gave me the chance.
During the most recent audition, I got to sit in a small room with a dozen other parents, all of us not talking to each other. (They represent the competition after all, so why should I be nice to them?) We all just sat in uncomfortable folding chairs and stared at the “hospitality table,” where someone had put out a twenty-gallon coffee pot and a paper plate full of stale cookies.
That isn’t speculation, by the way. Those cookies were as stale as bleached cardboard. I know because I ate one. After the first bite, I was too polite to just throw it away, so I went ahead and finished it. I have no explanation as to why I went back and got another one. But, again, this isn’t about me.
When my daughter came back from the audition room, I asked her how it went. I got about as much from her as most parents get from their teenage children. She told me, “It was okay.”
I asked her what she meant by, okay. Okay, as in they rushed the stage and begged you to come to their school? Or, okay, as in you crapped your pants and they had to open a window to air out the room?
She said, “I dunno. It was just okay.”
That’s it. That’s all I got out of her. Now, I can only sit back and wait to see if any of the schools are going to let her in. Hopefully, at least one of them says, yes.
But if not, maybe when she turns thirty-five she can become a surgeon.