The driving scenario happened to me when my mother taught me to drive. It's sort of a family tradition to scream at teenagers while they're panicking on the road.

Dear Diary,

So I spent Friday night translating ancient scrolls. I told Don that I could be out on a date instead of cooped up with him translating Elgar the Horrible's final decree of devastation upon his return to the foundations of his kingdom, exactly 300,000 years in the future, which just happens to be this year of course. He laughed. I hit him upside the head with his Cuneiform to English dictionary.

His translation was off and so Elgar the Horrible still has about 10,000 years before he melts the city. I'll mark it on my calendar.


Dear Diary,

I had my weekly counseling session with Splinter. I mostly sit there on the couch and rant about my problems while he nods and says supportive things. He asked me to teach his boys how to drive. I laughed out loud for a second until I realized he was serious. He knows that they have a need to drive and he wants them to know the rules of the road to keep police officers safe from being knocked out.

I thought I'd teach the problem child first. I thought Raph would have a really hard time taking instructions. But he listened like a big green angel. We drove at night on abandoned streets, so I don't know how he'll do when he's confronted with traffic.

Don did pretty well too, except that he kept talking all the time and he missed some of my directions.

Mike was a lot more difficult. It wasn't for lack of trying though. He's left handed and has a real problem telling his right from his left and east from west and I kept saying things like, "Go up to Ellis Street and head East." And that made absolutely no sense to him. Mostly we sat at every street corner while he said, "What? Which way? Towards what? What's by there?"

And guess what? My problem child was my presumed angel. Leo was the one who was the hardest to teach and I still feel really badly about what I said to him. It turns out that he gets really insecure when he thinks that he looks incompetent and he's so capable that he doesn't have to deal with that problem very often. I don't think it's such a problem when Splinter teaches him because he's his parent and he knows that Splinter isn't judging him. But I feel bad now that I know that he thinks that I judge him.

It started out okay. But he missed a stop sign and I told him so as we coasted past it and he snapped that it would have been nice to have a warning and it wasn't fair to make him guess. Well, okay. He was nervous and I let it go. Then he stepped on the breaks really hard and I threw my arms out and unconsciously stepped down on the floor boards like I was vicariously driving the van.

"What are you doing? I know I'm a bad driver! You don't have to rub it in!" He said that really angrily.

I kept my mouth shut. Then he did okay for a while, but then he looked away at the gas gauge for too long and I yelled as he nearly sideswiped a fire hydrant. All I said was "Look out!"

He turned the car off and turned to me and said, "Well, I don't see why you're making me do this. If I wanted to be made fun of I could have stayed at home! I'd do a lot better if you would be quiet!"

I'm not used to any of them yelling at me and if it was Raph I wouldn't have minded because I know he just yells for no reason. But with Leo it was really awful because I know that he rarely raises his voice.

But I made it even worse. I really let him have it.

I said, "You ungrateful child! That's all you are! I don't care if you do carry katanas and kill ninjas! I have ten years on you, junior! And you'll respect me when you're in my car or else you can get out and take the sewers back! Now shut up and drive!"

I instantly had a flashback to when I was learning to drive with my father at exactly the same age and he screamed, "I'm you're father and you'll respect me! If you don't like the way I teach, then you can get out of the car and walk home! Why are you crying!"

He wasn't crying because he just doesn't do that. He was really quiet though. He looked like he didn't know if he should get out of the car or stay there. So I got out of the car to signal to him that I was going to drive. I took him home and haven't spoken a word to him since.

Back at the dungeon de Turtle, Splinter was obviously upset by this and Leo went straight to the training room. Splinter said that his oldest doesn't get upset much and that he would talk to him about it. Raph was hanging around, eating a really gross sandwich and his eyes bugged out when he heard that I had screamed at him. I was blubbering really badly and he offered me his smelly sandwich.

So I haven't heard from him since yesterday and I'm waiting for Splinter to call me about it. But I might just go over there and apologize. I feel really rotten and I'm thinking about skipping class. I might have a crying jag in front of everybody. I can't stand the idea that Leo, or any of them for that matter, are mad at me.