4.4 Driving Lessons: How to learn to drive? (A genius guide)

Step 1: Study

“Weiwei, it’s getting really late. Are you not coming to bed?”

Li Wei looked up from the mechanical engineering textbook on his computer screen. His slightly sleepy wife was standing at the threshold of his home office in her distractingly ethereal nightdress. The professor sensed the blood rush from his brain to other parts of his body and felt an overwhelming desire to perform thorough research on An Mei’s garment.

No, he said to himself. He could not get distracted. Even though his wife looked like a delicious cake with a little bit of frosting on top, he had to focus. His first driving lessons were tomorrow.

“Hmm… Sorry, Mei. It’s just this new paper with…ummm… Professor Shen, yeah.” Li Wei said clumsily. “I have to do a bit of reading.”

“Professor Shen, huh?” An Mei stepped into the room and walked towards her husband’s desk. “Professor Li, you do know that you are a terrible liar, right?”

“What? No. Meimei, this isn’t a lie. We are writing a paper on…a new formulation of classical mechanics.”

“Is that so?” An Mei said, with a hint of a smile on her lips. She had now passed the couch and was closing in on him.

A moment before she reached him, Li Wei managed to close the textbook. A detail that did not go unnoticed by his wife.

An Mei wrapped her arms around his neck from behind and peered at the computer screen which was now showing a paper on cosmology. “Correct me if I’m wrong Professor Li, but I remember you telling me that classical mechanics was about Newton, speed, and how things move. I don’t remember it having anything to do with the birth of the universe.”

“Ahh…that… Yes…in inflationary theory we still need those techniques…for…for…”

“All right, all right, Weiwei. Keep your secrets for now. Any more lies, and you might twist yourself into a cute pretzel.” She kissed him on the top of his head and once more on the neck. “Just don’t stay up too late, okay?”

“Okay,” Li Wei said sheepishly.

An Mei gave him another kiss on the cheeks.

Just as she was about to leave, Li Wei grabbed her hand. He stood up, closed the distance between them, and gave her a long and passionate kiss.

When they let go, An Mei was blushing furiously. “What was that for?” she asked, while trying and failing to suppress her grin.

“For being you,” he said, and kissed her again.

Step 2: Wake up

The alarm, sounding like the screaming of a thousand banshees, woke Li Wei from his happy dreams.

An Mei, nestled against his chest, and still very sleepy, looked up at him accusingly.

The professor slowly grabbed his phone, saw that it was 5:30, and turned off the alarm before going back to cuddling his wife.

“What’s the time, Weiwei?” An Mei asked groggily.

“5:30,” he said, and placed a kiss on her forehead. “Go back to sleep, my love.”

“Why did you set the alarm so early?”

“I don’t know… Oh no!” Li Wei suddenly sat upright.

An Mei, startled by the sudden movement but still sleepy, sat up and leaned on her husband. “What’s wrong, Weiwei?”

“I have to go running with Professor Shen,” he blurted out, his sleep-deprived brain mixing the lie he was supposed to say today with the lie he had uttered yesterday.

“Running? This early in the morning?” An Mei tried to focus on her Weiwei, but it proved too much effort. Instead, she let out a yawn and held on to him for comfort and warmth. “And Professor Shen again?” she mumbled.

“Yeah… I promised to eat his drumsticks.”

“What?”

“What?!”

“Weiwei. You came to bed at like 3 in the morning, and you are leaving to go running now? You will fall asleep in class,” she said, while trying to gently pull him back to bed.

“No, no, I have to go running. I promised.” Despite his sleep-addled state, Li Wei was uncompromising on that one point.

“I’ll miss you,” she said, trying to sound sad and maybe a little sexy, but it just came across as sleepy muttering.

“I know. But, I have to do this. I promised.”

“Alright.” An Mei was too sleepy to put up any more resistance. “Just come back early and get some sleep, okay?”

“Okay. I’ll come back before our daughters are awake.”

“What?”

“What?!!”

“Weiwei, are you doing alright? I think you are still very sleepy.”

“Don’t worry Meimei. I am perfectly fine. Just going running. Go back to sleep. I will wash my face before leaving.” Li Wei leaned in and kissed her right eye.

“Okay… Just be careful, Weiwei. Come back quickly,” An Mei managed to say before collapsing back onto the bed.

Step 3: Meet sister-in-law in the parking lot

Li Wei somehow managed to dress himself and get down to the parking lot, looking like a sleep-deprived zombie.

An Jing was standing next to his car, waiting for him. “Jie-fu, what the hell happened to you?” she asked. “Didn’t you get enough sleep?”

“Ahh! Jingjing. When did you get here?”

“About five minutes ago.”

“Where is your car?”

“What car?”

“Your sports car?”

“Jie-fu, I own a bicycle.”

“What? But you had my car in your ad.”

“Wei-ge. What’s going on with you? Who do you think I am?”

“Ummm…you are my sister. You are famous.”

“What were you doing last night?”

“I was studying for driving lessons.”

“You mean, you were looking up videos?”

“No. Mechanical engineering.”

“No surprises there. When did you go to sleep?”

“3 in the afternoon…no…morning.”

“That explains it.”

“Do you want to skip today and go back to sleep?”

“No, no. I am perfectly alright. Let’s get going. Here, let me get in the car.”

Li Wei opened the door on the passenger side. Without getting in, he waved his hands around as if he was putting on his seatbelt. Then he lay down on the ground, and promptly fell asleep.

Step 4: Wake up (For real!)

Li Wei heard a distant voice saying something incoherent, and then someone was shaking him.

“….wa….up…..Jie…..slap you….”

It sounded like a little girl, and she was yelling at him.

“Wei-ge…here…wake…”

What was she saying? Why was she disturbing him?

“Jie-fu, wake up.”

“Huh?!”

“Finally!”

“Jingjing, where are we?”

“We are at the dorms.”

“How did we get here?”

“How do you think? I hauled you inside and drove us.”

“Why are we here? I thought we were going to drive around.”

“We will. But first, we need to wake you up completely.”

“Okay.”

An Jing got out of the car and opened the passenger-side door. She helped her Jie-fu out, grabbed his hand, and led him into the girl’s dorm. At the entrance she spoke to the security guard. Li Wei’s sleepy brain registered only a few snippets of the conversation.

“…Professor Li…inside…brother…”

“Why…sleep…”

“Yeah…because…scream…Mei Lin…”

“…no problem…but…”

“Okay…thanks.”

Then he was led inside.

“Wei-ge. You stand here for a second, okay? I will be back.”

“Okay.”

Li Wei leaned against the wall, closed his eyes, and waited.

“Professor Li. How are you doing?” a soft and familiar voice asked him.

Li Wei slowly opened his eyes and tried to focus. “Mei Lin, what are you doing here?”

“I came to keep you company until Jingjing gets everything ready, Professor. And also to keep you safe.”

“Keep me safe? From what?”

“Didn’t you notice where we are?”

Li Wei looked around. The location seemed familiar but still somehow different. A few moments later, he realized that it was a washroom. “Why do you need to keep me safe in the washroom?” he asked Mei Lin. Then somehow, despite his languid state, his survival instincts took over, and the fearful and terrible truth dawned upon him.

He was in the washroom. Inside the girls’ dorm.

His drowsy eyes snapped open, and a frantic Li Wei said, “Oh no! No, no. Mei Lin, we need to get out of here right now.”

“It’s okay, professor,” Mei Lin said calmly, and grabbed his shirt to prevent him from escaping. “That’s why I am here. To clear up any confusion. It will be alright.”

Panic and sleep warred inside Li Wei’s mind, and after a short but decisive battle, sleep took over the reins.

“Ohhh…okay… I will trust you…then,” he said and once again leaned against the wall.

“Don’t worry. It won’t be long. See, they are here already.”

An Jing was back, and she was carrying a large tub, supported on the other side by Chen Yi. Once they were in the washroom, the girls placed the tub on the sink.

“Good morning, professor,” Chen Yi greeted Li Wei. “Sorry about this,” she added awkwardly.

“Sorry? Why?” Li Wei asked.

Chen Yi looked at An Jing.

“Come here, Jie-fu,” An Jing commanded.

A sleepy Li Wei managed to amble over to his sister-in-law.

An Jing grabbed his hair. “This might hurt a little, okay?” she said. “And don’t breathe.” Then, without giving him a chance to speak, she plunged his head into the tub of water.

Li Wei felt a thousand pinpricks as soon as his skin touched the water surface. The water was cold. No, not just cold, it was freezing. It burned his face, his eyes, and his ears. Some of it went into his nose. He tried to pull back, but An Jing’s iron grip held him down. Just when he thought he was about to suffocate, his sister-in-law pulled him back.

“AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!…Cough…Cough…”

“It’s okay, Wei-ge. It’s alright. Lean forward,” An Jing said, while patting him on the back.

Li Wei’s face still burned, but as the water in his nostrils drained out, he was finally able to breathe properly. More importantly, for the first time since he got out of bed that day, he was fully and incontrovertibly awake.

By now, a crowd of female students had gathered at the washroom entrance. They had all heard the screams and had come to check what was going on. But when they saw that it was just An Jing torturing Professor Li, they went back to their rooms.

“Are you feeling okay?” An Jing asked, her voice laced with concern.

“Yeah. I think. I am not sleepy anymore.”

“Shall we do it again?”

“Do we need to?”

“Just to make sure you are completely awake.”

“Okay. Let’s go. Come on,” Li Wei said, psyching himself up. “No, wait. Give me a second. Let me hold my breath.”

Step 5: First Lesson

“Sorry about the water, Wei-ge. You doing alright now?”

“Yeah. I think I am fully awake,” Li Wei said. “Don’t worry about the water. It’s good that you woke me up. I don’t want to miss the first lesson.”

“If you don’t want to miss lessons, then you should go to bed early, Jie-fu.”

“I will. I just wanted to be prepared for our first lesson.”

“So, what did you learn?”

“I learned about gearboxes, transmission systems, suspension, ohh! and engines. That was fun. There was a lot of thermodynamics. I got distracted halfway through. You know, I managed to prove a new result in classical thermodynamics that people somehow missed. It was like…”

“Good for you, Jie-fu. But let’s focus on the car, okay?”

“Ohh, okay. Ah, and I have been meaning to ask. Why does this car have only two pedals? I read that there were supposed to be three.”

“Because it’s an EV. It only has the accelerator pedal and brake; there is no clutch. And there are no gears.”

“I see. That makes sense.”

“So? Are you ready to start?”

“Yep. Let’s do it! What should I do first?”

“First, you need to learn which pedal is which. You see the skinny one on the right?”

“Yes.”

“That’s the accelerator. You press it to move forward. The broader one on the left is the brake pedal.”

“Okay. Got it.”

“Your car has one-pedal driving…”

“But there are two pedals!”

“Yes. But you can drive using only the accelerator pedal. Pushing it will move the car forward; releasing it will stop the car.”

“Then why is there a brake pedal?”

“It’s for emergencies, or if you want to stop the car very quickly.”

“Ahh, okay. Got it.”

“Now, press the brake pedal, and turn on the power button.”

“Done. And next?”

“Next, select the drive mode. Yeah, just like that. Now slowly press the accelerator…”

“AHHHH!!!…” Li Wei screamed as the car lurched forward at top speed.

“Brake! Brake! Jie-fu. Take your leg off the accelerator. Hit the brake pedal.” An Jing yelled. Once the car had stopped without hitting any plants or veering off the road, An Jing glared at her brother-in-law. “Jie-fu. I told you to press it slowly.”

“Sorry, sorry. My bad. I will be careful next time.”

“And don’t turn the steering wheel so quickly. Look, we almost got turned around.”

“Okay, okay.”

“Let’s try the starting sequence again.”

“By the way, Jingjing, why are we next to the chemistry department?”

“Because, in case you hit something, it’s better to hit something in the chemistry department.”

“Did you fight with them?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Focus on the lessons, Jie-fu.”

Step 6: Make wife suspicious

Half an hour later, Li Wei and An Jing were still next to the chemistry department. They had moved only a few meters, but somehow they had made a complete one hundred and eighty degree turn.

“How did I do this time?” Li Wei asked hopefully.

“Terrible, Jie-fu. You are turning the steering wheel too much. At least this time you managed to start slowly.” An Jing was not the kind of teacher who sugarcoated her words to spare her student’s feelings.

“I am really bad at this,” Li Wei said melancholically. His dream of long drives with An Mei was vanishing before his eyes when faced with his incompetence as a driver.

“You are not just bad, Jie-fu; you are terrible. Probably the worst driver I have ever seen. But don’t worry, I am not giving up on you. One way or another I am going to teach you to drive. My coffee and drumsticks are at stake here.”

Despite the cutting insults, Li Wei somehow felt calmer and more hopeful. He smiled at his sister-in-law. “Thanks, Jingjing. I am glad you are my teacher,” he said. “Can we go one more time?”

Ping

“Just a sec, let me check my phone.”

While Li Wei sat in the driver’s seat watching the students heading for sports practice or the occasional professor on a morning walk, An Jing was texting someone.

A minute of back-and-forth texts later, she said, “Your wife is worried about you.”

“What? Why? Did she suspect something?”

“She is worried about you leaving the apartment in a daze. So she asked me to check on you.”

“What did you tell her? You didn’t tell her about the car, right?”

“Don’t worry, Jie-fu. I confirmed your cover story. I told her that I saw you around the campus with Professor Shen.”

“That’s great. I was worried there for a second.”

“But, did you really tell her that you were going running with Professor Shen? Couldn’t you come up with a better lie?”

“I panicked when she asked me, and you saw how sleepy I was. What did she say?”

“She was suspicious, obviously. She was wondering why an 80-year-old man was running around campus early in the morning. But I managed to convince her.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her that Professor Shen got into fitness recently.”

“Did she believe you?”

“Of course. What do you take me for? I am the best liar in Tianjing. I even got an award for it at school.”

“Really?”

“See, you almost believed it.”

Step 7: Evaluation

By 7:30 they had managed to reach the other end of the chemistry department building.

“I think we’ll stop here for today, Jie-fu.”

“So, when do you think I will be ready, Jingjing?” Li Wei asked.

“Ready for what?”

“For the driving test.”

“Wei-ge. Let me tell you this. With your skill level it will take at least a month to get the basics right. Maybe, after a month, we can attempt the roads. But the driving test is in the far future.”

“Ohh!”

“You are disappointed?”

“A little bit.”

“Are you thinking of giving up?”

“No. Not at all. I have to do this. Doesn’t matter how long it takes.”

“That’s the spirit. Now come on, let’s switch seats; I will drive us back.”

“Do you want to have breakfast at our place?”

“Of course.”

“Wait! We should think about why we are together.”

“We’ll just tell her that I met you on campus while you were running and I came for breakfast with you.”

“Okay. That might work.”

“Of course it will. She won’t suspect a thing.”