The Driving Test as Metaphor
23rd September, 2006
by Moni Schilller
On Thursday Gord and I had a magnificent day of baking in my spanking new kitchen. What a marvelous feeling! Dozens of Okanagan Harvest Cakes rolled out of my two new ovens like packs of dachshunds let loose on a rabbit hunt.
The next day, however, when we made our first batch of Totally Decadent Fruitcake, disaster struck. I made the mistake of not properly reading the recipe, and so we used the wrong amount of butter. Then, I stupidly forgot the raisins, and to top it off urged us on to make two extra batches. Last night when I tried de-panning, most stuck to the pan and ended up in the garbage! This is literally hundreds of dollars worth of product wasted. I sobbed as I de-panned.
However, into every life a little rain must fall. Nicky had his driving test on Monday, and I was wondering what would happen. On the way, I told him about my driving test. At one point, the tester had said, “Stop! I can’t take it any more!" That was when I was trying to parallel park for the fifteenth time. Needless to say, I did not get my driver’s license on that day.
I waited for Nicky to return from his test for half an hour, reading this fall’s delicious Vogue magazine. I was abruptly shaken from my reverie by Nicky who walked in and loudly announced, “I failed." I felt bad for the kid, but kind of glad as he is a terribly aggressive driver. Funnily enough, he failed because he went through a red light—an automatic fail on the driving test.
This week I was called by the owner of an independent grocery store called Sunshine Market, and will be doing a demo of Okanagan Harvest Cake there next Friday afternoon. I have to admit I was feeling a bit bummed out by the whole idea of slugging it out with the public, but then I thought of something that would brighten up the whole event. I decided to get the media to help me bring out a small crowd.
On my site, there’s a review of Totally Decadent Fruitcake by Maxine Dehart, a columnist for the Kelowna Capital News. She’s an long time Kelowna resident, and writes a weekly business column that is widely read. Two years ago, when I first started selling fruitcakes, she was invaluable in helping me make a bunch of sales when she reviewed my product. So, hopefully this will bring out the hordes and make the time fly.
So, as always, there are ups and downs that could literally kill a person, but what the hey. Sometimes we pass some of life’s tests, and sometimes we fail them, but we have to try to remain philosophical about it all. I feel like throttling the genius who same up with the adage, “nothing worthwhile ever comes easily,” or something to that effect. It just seems so grossly unfair.