I'm behind the wheel in Rathgor for the actual 13th time, and all's going well until I remember the D6 horts I broke, and then Claire Cuddy sees me. . .
Haven't so much as sat behind the wheel of a cor since the Z4 got, like, seized. Haven't had the basic hort to. Not the best preparation for a goy about to sit his driving test, you're probably thinking, but to be honest it's, like, the opposite? Because when you've been driving for as long as I have, you tend to pick up a lot of bad habits that don't go down too well with examiners - riding the clutch, texting while going around roundabouts, having sex in the cor pork at Dalkey Hill.
In fairness to me, I am an actually good driver, but my main problem is I tend to go to pieces during the 30 minutes of the test. Those of you who got to see me play rugby back in the day are probably going, er, how could that be when it was his big-match temperament that made him the best kicker in the country back in the late 1990s? The answer is - and this wouldn't be unusual for me - I haven't an actual clue.
But it's like I can feel the examiner's eyes boring into me and my nerve just goes and I usually end up hitting lamp posts and wheelie bins and cyclists.
"A lot fewer injuries than last time," was all the examiner said to me when I flunked the test in April.
And what with that being the 12th time I've failed, it's no surprise that the name Ross O'Carroll-Kelly has become, like, an immediate punchline with the goys in the test centre in Rathgor. They have this, like, Padre Pio medal that they give to whoever's accompanying me and they put it on the dashboard.
But the pressure's on me now in a big-time way to pass, what with the Feds cracking down, which is why I promised myself that when I sat it again this week, I wasn't going to, like, fail and shit?
That meant learning from my past mistakes. So as we're walking to the cor - I borrowed Oisinn's new Audi for the day - I make a big show of switching my mobile on to silent and then, when we get into the cor, of lowering the Snoopster down a decibel or six.
"Okay," the examiner goes, staring at, I suppose, Padre, "it's time for you to prove your mettle." I don't want to blow my own trumpet, roysh, but it has to be said that I end up acing the first half of the test. It actually goes ridiculously well up until the point when the goy tells me to hang a left on to Villiers Road to do my three-point-turn and the various other, I suppose, stunts that are port and porcel of the driving test.
I'm actually showboating at this stage, mentioning to the goy that I broke a fair few horts around here in my time and he even laughs. It's when I've just done that backing around the corner thing that I notice her, standing in the middle of the road, with a face like nappy rash, steam practically coming out of her ears.
Claire Cuddy.
I actually say her name out loud. Then I hit the accelerator - swerving before I hit her, I probably should add - then lead-footing out of there, we're talking a hundred Ks an hour in an, I don't know, fifty zone.
In my rear-view I can see her pegging it for her cor - an 03 Kash Kai - and suddenly I don't give a fock about passing the test. The only thing that matters to me is putting space between me and that lunatic.
I think it's only fair to tell the examiner the whole Jackanory, especially as I end up nearly killing him by pulling out on to Highfield Road when there's not even a break in the actual traffic.
I'm like, "There's a lot of birds out there with perfectly good reasons for wanting to do actual horm to me - you probably know all about my rep - but Claire Cuddy is not one of them." Which is true. We went out twice - as in, like, twice? I ended up getting nowhere with her, roysh, so when she texted me asking about a third date, I texted her back, "Know the one that's one too many," which you have to admit is pretty hilarious.
Of course I had no idea that Claire was madder then a barefoot woman in a roomful of rocking chairs. She storted texting me, telling me she was going to, like, kill me - as in literally?
So that's why I'm burning serious rubber here but those, like, Japanese imports are unbelievably fast and she actually noses my bumper as we pass the Gourmet Shop and I end up nearly driving straight through the lights on to Terenure Road - talk about going over the edge of a cliff - but I pull out just in time, roysh, and take the corner at Deli Boutique on practically two wheels, while Claire follows me like Fernando focking Alonso.
In my mirror, I can see her, like, frothing at the mouth and I'm pretty sure I'm breaking the world land speed record as I lead the chase down Orwell Road.
And at the same time, I'm trying to explain to the examiner, sort of, like, put everything in context?
"Finding yourself suddenly single in your mid- to late-twenties in this town,"
I go, "is a bit like shopping for a turkey at four o'clock on Christmas Eve - all
that's out there is a lot of seriously damaged birds," but he says nothing
at all.
I take a sudden right on to Zion Road, then another on to Victoria Road, hitting every speed bump on it at, like, eighty Ks, before I realise with, like, total relief, that I've managed to lose the mad wagon. I make a big show of, like, wiping my forehead - as in, phew - but when I turn around and look at him, roysh, I realise with a sudden shock that the examiner is dead.
No, he's not dead - he's actually asleep.
Of course I end up having to wake him and ask him what the Jackanory is.
"I'm narcoleptic," he eventually goes, which obviously means fock-all to me. He's there, "In stressful situations, I tend to just . . . fall asleep."
I'm like, "But how can you be, like, a driving examiner if you're . . . whatever that word was," and suddenly, roysh, the penny drops.
"Your boss doesn't know," I go.
Something passes between us.
It's, like, an understanding that the balance of power has somehow shifted.
I'm there, "I have to say, I feel pretty confident that I aced that test."
And there's nothing he can say to that. Except, "congratulations".