It was my second day of driving with a permit, and we (me and my driving instructor, herein referred to as DI) were out on the mostly-deserted back country roads around Davis. Things were going surprisingly well, until I saw a dead cat in the middle of the road. Ewwww!

"Swerve around it," the DI said calmly. Uncalmly, I did a big swerve and nearly went off the road into the trees, then veered back into the middle of the road, then back and forth a few more weaving times. Then brown, then a HUGE THUMP and a lot of bumps. I screamed and thought "And here I am in a car with no airbags!" Then it turned into a sea of green stuff, and I kept hitting the brake and wondering why we weren't stopping, screaming...the DI grabbed the wheel and somehow made the thing stop.

Surprisingly, once we'd stopped, the DI was very amused by the whole thing. Which is to say, he kept giggling like a little girl. Apparently the sight of a Volvo in the midst of a field was no end amusing. To him, anyway. (Fortunately, he didn't mind his car getting trashed, and didn't yell- high marks in a DI) He even complimented my choice of crashing into something soft- "good job"- instead of the trees or the telephone pole.

"What telephone pole?"

"You didn't see it?"

"No...

Then the DI decided he wanted a souvenir. "Can I call Bill and get him out here with a camera? This is hilarious."

"You're kidding, right?"

"No, this is cool."

The tow truck guy arrived, looked at the mess, and said "We'll need a flatbed truck for that." So he and the DI waited around by the road, while I sat in the car with my hand over my face.

Then a guy driving by pulled his truck over, and I could hear him yelling "What the hell is THIS?" "Oh shit, it's the farmer!" I thought, as I watched him, the tow truck guy and the DI walk over to where I'd pulled into the field...right next to a telephone pole. Eep! The guy laughed, then drove away.

Pretty soon yet another guy pulled over (so much for deserted back road). This one pulled out his camera. I ducked. Then he went back and got ANOTHER camera...this time a Polaroid, and the DI got his souvenir.

The DI also found out from that guy that I'd landed in a field of seed onions- and probably caused $5000 worth of damage to them. SHIT.

Upon later inspection from the flatbed truck, I'd apparently driven right by a telephone pole, then leaped over a ditch full of water, made a big impact, then killed 100 yards of expensive onion before stopping right in the muddiest area of the field. Good job!

"Told you I was a sucky driver!"

In the meantime, the DI is having loads of fun with this, telling various people in his department about it, scanning the picture to show his family and friends, and wanting to use it as his Windows background. I said he could do it if he put "My School of Driving" over it. He also finds it fun to use lines like "Don't cry over split onions" and "Don't play in the onion fields!" He still keeps giggling like a schoolgirl.

Just today he told me that he'd told someone in his department (the crash made him late for a meeting) that I'd crashed, and she said "Is she blonde?"