Driving in France - Part II

The second lesson, my teacher was very late. During our entire drive, he had the radio on. I love music especially when driving, but he had it on a talk show. The talk show was a sexologist giving advice to callers. Not only was this distracting but also a little uncomfortable and it was ear-piercing loud. Nothing incredibly educational occurred during our second lesson.

I was driving happily with him on the highway in the middle of nowhere when he began screaming, "Pull over, pull over!" I didn't know where or why and he jerked the steering wheel and made me slow down. At the side of the street was a boy waiting.

"Stop, stop!," Cried Boo Boo.

I stopped the car and the boy got in the back. Boo Boo reached over the back of his seat and shook the boy's hand. From their conversation, I gathered he was the student driving after my lesson was over.

"Why didn't you stop when I asked you?," Boo Boo said staring at me.

"Because we were on the high way and I didn't understand why we were stopping," I protested.

"When I tell you to stop, you don't need to question why. Are you going to question me every time I ask you to do something? Hmm?"

"I don't know," I mumbled feeling annoyed.

We ended back in front of the driving school a little less than 40 minutes later. I was not enjoying his teaching methods and considering how much I was paying, I felt upset that he wasn't giving me a full hour. Should I say something? Our conversation went a little like this. I said, "Are we going to make up the time for the last lessons we've had at some point?"

Wide eyed he asked, "What do you mean?"

"Well, our lessons are supposed to be an hour but we've barely done more than 40 minutes the last couple times."

Shaking his head he said, "Look, I work 12 hour days. I don't even get time to eat lunch. If one of my students is late or we get stuck in traffic, I can't help that.
I am the teacher. You are the student. If you aren't happy with how I run my school then you could go somewhere else."

My heart was pounding. I always had a hard time staying calm during these types of debates where the French know the perfect thing to say to get me shocked and tongue-tied so I repeated something my French husband would've said. "Listen, the way you manage your time is not my problem. I am your client. I am paying you for one hour classes. If you cannot give me a one hour lesson, it is your problem, not mine!"

This comment, as you probably have already guessed, did not smooth things out.
He got so mad, he threw his folders onto the desk. Other students waiting were watching us. "You cannot talk to me this way. I am the teacher," he said.

"If you cannot give me a one hour lesson, then I don't think we can do these classes together anymore. I want a refund."

"Refund? Look, you can stop lessons with me. Fine, go! But, you will not get any refunds!"

I left the place furious and shouted about it all to my husband who fled back to the school and came back an hour later. What had I done? Would my husband be able to get our money back? What was I going to do?

My husband came into our apartment shaking his head.
"What happened? What happened?" I desperately needed to know.

"Oh, God! He is impossible to talk to", my husband laughed. "He's dumb, he's just dumb, that's all."

"I know, but what happened? Did he reimburse us?," I asked.

"Huh? No, I scheduled you another class for tomorrow. You're going to have to apologize to him and make it work."

"What? What? I can't learn with him! He's awful! I can't go back!"

"That's the best I can do. He's not going to refund us."