Laura Learns to Drive Standard

My friend Laura asked me to help her learn how to drive standard. For the first time, she is the new owner of a car and it happens to be standard. I leapt at the opportunity. I really enjoy teaching people and driving standard can be very stressful if you aren't confident. An earlier attempt to learn from her boyfriend had proved disastrous. (It is usually best to learn from someone a little more removed than boyfriends or fathers.)
Now, I should mention that Laura had lost her license. She lost it through inactivity - not by driving wildly and with wanton disregard for the safety of others. Far be it from me to hold a bureaucratic oversight over someone. So until she retakes her drivers test, she needs someone in the car with her while she drives. To me, that simply meant I would have to pick her up.
What I didn't know, and gentle reader I must hope that you believe me here, is that there were actually three reasons she let her license lapse -
1. She was traveling or working abroad a lot.
2. She didn't have a car.
and 3. Driving kind of scares her.
Now that in itself isn't so troubling. And to be honest, she got the hang of the clutch fairly quickly. Even hill starts didn't bother her. Well, that is unless people were looking at her. Which they would, since she crawled through their neighbourhood unwilling to break the 30k mark. I told her where third gear is, but to be honest she seems happy with 2nd. Actually, she seems happy driving like she is always looking for parking. And so I asked her, "Why do you want your license? When are you going to drive?"
"Sundays," she said. "I'd like to drive to church on Sundays."
That is when it hit me - the full weight of what I had done. I've lost all rights to complain. I was teaching that person. I was teaching a Sunday Driver.