The Luv Doc: Be Patient

Dear Luv Doc,

Have you noticed the ever-increasing number of people driving around with these stickers all over their cars, “Student Driver. Please Be Patient”? I have never seen a frightened 16-year-old behind the wheel with the scared doe-in-the-headlights look yet!! What I am seeing is an adult driver behind the wheel. This seems to be some trend that is happening. Like “Dude! You gotta put a Student Driver on your car or you aren’t cool!” What I really think is going on is these brain-dead adults who just don’t want to try to drive with traffic like the rest of us trying to get to work or a funeral or whatever, feel that they are entitled to drive with no sense of the world around them and feel that they can act that way because they have a sticker on their car!! I’m not buying it! What are your thoughts? ;– Not Patient

I’m just going to say it’s refreshing to finally get a question from someone who is against adult education. Uneducated adults have been getting off too easy for decades now – arguably since the Reagan era, but definitely since 2016. It’s goddamned deplorable is what it is. Props to you for finally saying enough’s enough. That takes some huevos gigantes – especially here in Lib City. It’s easy enough to cower behind Greg Abbott and demand that only rich kids in Texas should get a quality education, but to go after uneducated adults too? Dude, that’s fucking hardcore. What next? People with “Baby on Board” stickers?

I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but it’s almost like you’re saying that people who didn’t have their shit together in 10th grade shouldn’t be allowed to improve themselves later in life ... even if it’s at their own expense! Self-improvement ... how fucking un-American is that? We better not tell Greg Abbott that adults are trying to educate themselves or he’ll make defunding adult education a linchpin of the Texas Republicans’ platform as well. Let’s be honest: Education has never worked in Republicans’ favor. In fact, I’m sure Greg Abbott would tell you that all those adult student drivers are only learning to drive so they can mule good-paying Texas jobs back across the border to Mexico! Dammit! We’re going to need more razor wire and militias!!

But look, I don’t want to spend this whole column ranting about how Greg Abbott only cares about sockless, penny loafer-wearing rich white dudes from the suburbs who drive King Ranch edition F-350s to their Downtown accounting jobs and therefore could really use some extra cash so their kids don’t have to go to the “scary” public schools that let in kids of non-Aryan descent. That wouldn’t be productive. I’m here to offer solutions – and not easy solutions, either ... like not voting for sleazebags. I’m talking about hard solutions, solutions that require self-awareness, restraint, and dare I say it ... enlightenment?

Please be patient. Is that so hard? Hasn’t patience been a prerequisite for driving in Austin since we started making all the top 10 lists of livable cities? Please note that none of those articles ever claimed Austin was a driveable city. We have too many potholes and Priuses for that. The thing Austin had that made everyone want to move here was a “chill vibe.” You know, that blissed-out, lackadaisical attitude you get when you’re not paying $1,200 a month for a 700-square-foot apartment that’s “easy walking distance from the Leander MetroRail station.” Everybody is always running late for shit nowadays. It’s because they don’t want to believe they live in a place where they have to spend an hour and a half in standstill traffic to get to a job with people they secretly hate because ... how likable is a person who spends $1,200 a month for a one-bedroom in Leander? That’s just fucking crazy. In fact, you can just assume that everyone in a car in Austin is just fucking crazy, so do yourself a favor: Be patient. Every driver is a student driver – even the robots.