I saw a sticker on the back of a Ford Escape recently. It was around 2 PM on King St North in Waterloo, right near St. Jacobs Farmers Market. Hot day. Long shift. Brain completely done. The sticker said, “Student Driver. Thank you for being patient.”

I read it twice. Then I looked at myself. Gripping the wheel a little too tight. Checking the clock for no reason. Muttering at a yellow light that had done nothing wrong.

I made one small edit in my head. “Thank you for being pathetic.“

Felt good. Also felt personal.

The light turned green. The student driver hesitated for a few seconds before moving. Probably checking, double checking, and checking once more that the road was actually clear. The guy behind me honked. I felt a flash of irritation at that guy. Mostly because I was about to do the same thing and he beat me to it.

Let me be clear about something. I have been driving for a long time. When I am rested, calm, and ahead of schedule, I am a saint behind the wheel. I give student drivers space. I ease off the accelerator. I pass them gently, like I am carrying eggs. I am patient, courteous, and basically a public service.

But after a long day at work, with a brain that has been squeezed dry and a commute standing between me and my couch, that saint quietly gets out of the car and walks home. What is left is a certified, licensed, decades-experienced primate with a full tank of gas and absolutely no business being on the road.

I do not honk at student drivers though. I want to make that clear. Not because I am noble. Purely because a panicked new driver is unpredictable and dangerous, and I would very much like to arrive home without becoming part of someone’s driving test story. My patience has a practical foundation. Let us not romanticise it.

But inside that car? Pure chaos. A running internal commentary that would make a sailor blush. Drumming on the steering wheel. Checking the clock every forty seconds as if time has changed its mind. Sighing so hard the windshield fogs up.

I have tailgated people going perfectly reasonable speeds. I have overtaken aggressively on a highway just to arrive at the same red light thirty seconds earlier, which I then sat at while reconsidering my choices. I have honked at lights that had been green for less than a second, as though my horn is some kind of traffic-dissolving technology that I alone have mastered.

I passed a test once. Decades ago. I got the card. I got the experience. I got zero stickers.

Here is the uncomfortable truth. A few decades ago, I was that student driver. I hesitated at green lights. I checked mirrors three times before moving. I crawled through intersections like I was defusing something. Nobody honked at me. Or if they did, they had enough sense to keep it brief because a scared new driver behind the wheel of a two-ton machine is not a problem anyone wants to make worse.

I knew that once. Somewhere between then and now I forgot it completely.

The student driver is the only honest person in that entire lineup of cars. They know they are learning. They put it in writing. The rest of us have been driving long enough to forget how bad we actually are. We confuse not crashing with knowing what we are doing. We call years of surviving our own bad habits experience. We took the self-awareness we had on day one, filed it somewhere, and never looked at it again.

So yes. Thank you for being pathetic.

To myself, first. To the guy behind me who honked, second. To everyone else who recognised themselves somewhere in here, third. The student driver earned their sticker honestly. The rest of us earned ours the hard way and still refuse to wear it.

Drive safe. Or don’t. We both know which one of us is actually trying.

Written while waiting patiently for a green light that had been green for 0.8 seconds — Kalyanasundaram Kalimuthu, Sunday, June 29, 2026.