Driving lesson that left me feeling flaky

Two slices of cucumber sit one on each eye As in a darkened room, breathing deeply, I lie, A slightly moist flannel is covering my brow, My still shaking legs, will not standing allow. My trembling hands just refuse to stay still, All silence my fast-beating heart loudly kills. Is it a hideous virus, in inexorable progression? No, I just gave the wife her first driving lesson! I’ll probably be accused of being sexist, I guess, But she is to driving what a baboon is to chess. She’d read the Highway Code from start to finish, But drove like a woman who’d read it in Finnish. How could she not see an ice cream van ahead? Poor Mr Whippy is now Mr Whiplash instead. He leapt from his van in a belligerent pose, The flake from his cornet wedged up his nose. He threatened to give me my own nasal flake But being diabetic, I declined, for insulin’s sake, She’d taken an eternity to reverse off the drive — It’d be easier to teach that baboon the jive. Her reversing technique was just a case of pot luck, The mirror only there to give her eyebrows a pluck. The drive now looked like it had been through the Blitz — The dustbin badly crushed, and the gate in small bits. I was utterly relieved when we were finally gone, And so was the woman whose drive we were on … The wife had lost it on a bend while applying lipgloss, The woman dived into a hedge, just avoiding limb loss. We left her in her porch, sobbing into her jumper, Her best garden gnome still wedged in our bumper. So we indicated left, but inexplicably turned right, The wipers full on, as was the red handbrake light. She said: ‘I’m not really sure if I’m in the right gear … This frock that I’m wearing is just sooo . . . last year. ‘I’d have worn a nice dress, a wool-cashmere mixture, If I’d known that yellow box would be taking me picture.’ I said, ‘You should be in neutral’, she flew into a rage, ‘You know with my skin tone, I never wear beige!’ ‘This is a T-junction,’ I said, trying to put her at ease. ‘Oh, that’s nice,’ she said. ‘I’ll have two sugars, please.’ Then a lone demonstrator, with a placard on a pole Held us up in traffic, and the wife lost all control. Her stream of expletives utterly dismayed me. ‘That’s not a demonstrator! It’s a lollipop lady!’ After a U-turn she asked: ‘Why are you in such a tizz? ‘A U-turn’s not illegal!’ ‘On a roundabout it is!’ We hit a speed hump at 50 as she went through the gears, My head shot through the sunroof — like a periscope with ears. A swift emergency stop continued our adventures. My glasses flew off, closely followed by my dentures. Gravity returned me to my seat, toothless and blind, Just as Mr Whippy from earlier hit us from behind. Already in a rage, his mood turned darker than soot When the gnome from our bumper dropped on his foot. ‘Stop hopping about,’ she said. ‘Be a man and say sorry, ‘Or the very least you can do is give us both a free lolly.’ ‘Oh, you want a gift?’ he said, as to the van he returned, ‘Well, take this gift with you — it’s been truly well earned.’ And so we went home, after the worst day of my life, Now just arrived is a doctor, summoned by the wife. He says: ‘Right, Mr Cope, now what I propose … ‘Is to use forceps, to remove that flake from your nose.’