Lost Journal

Humor Column
by Tim Mollen
March 30, 2006

On the Road to Failing Trigonometry

Journal Entry:  June 5, 1985 (age 16)

I want to learn how to drive.  My parents want me to learn how to do trigonometry.  Both are noble goals, but they fell into mutually exclusive sets this evening.

I had arranged to go over to my friend Elizabeth Mahoney’s house, so she could help me study for our Regents exam in math.  Elizabeth is much better at math than I am.  She is also popular, pretty, and a star athlete.  I think I’d be more interested in math if it could explain why a girl like Elizabeth would agree to spend several hours alone with an awkward teenaged guy who thinks that cosine has something to do with loans.  I guess good friends have a lot of patience.  And free time.

I asked my parents if I could drive to the Mahoneys’ house.  I got my learner’s permit a month ago, and my 17-year-old brother, Dan, would be accompanying me as the supervising, licensed driver.  They said no.  But by the time we had driven two blocks, I had talked Dan into letting me do it anyway.  I would drive to Elizabeth’s, Dan would drive home, and Mom and Dad would be none the wiser.

“This is awesome,” I thought as we switched seats.  “I may look like an idiot later, when Elizabeth tries to teach me about negative angle identities, but right now I’m going to look wicked cool when I DRIVE up to the front of her house.”  (With some more thought, and more math skills, I would have realized the statistical impossibility of looking cool in a rusted, 1978 Chevy station wagon.)

When we arrived at her house, I left Dan’s key in the ignition, got out of the car, and shut my door.  At the same moment, Dan had gotten out and shut his door.  It took a few moments to realize that each of us had also locked our doors.  Bummer.

So there we were, two redheaded honor students standing beside an empty, locked car with the engine running.  The fact that I hadn’t really pulled the car over, but had left it in the middle of the road, didn’t help matters.  Nor did the fact that the Mahoneys’ street, Avon Road, has a median that was now making it impossible for other cars to navigate around us.

As I approached the front door, Elizabeth opened it with a look of supreme amusement.  “Need a phone?,” she asked.  I smiled weakly and called home.  Distracted by the horns and yells of annoyed drivers out front, I was unable to come up with a fabrication to tell the folks.  I was a disobedient, but shamed moron.  My dad soon arrived with a spare set of keys, and a look that said, “I’ll deal with you later.”

But facing Dad was the least of my worries.  Elizabeth took pains all night to phrase math examples in pointed terms.  One favorite that she returned to again and again was “How many freckled goofballs does it take to park an ugly car?”  I think I may be hearing about this one for quite a while.

© 2006 Tim Mollen

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