I will freely admit that sometimes I ask questions that probably don’t need to be asked as I can usually answer them myself.

For instance, this one time when I was home on Staten Island, I had made plans to meet up with my cousin, Mikey. Mikey joined the Army not too long ago and has been training to drive tanks. I picked him up in my little car and we went to our usual coffee spot to hang out, dish about the family, talk about his life in the military and my life working in Washington, D.C.

After mentioning to him that I have been posting on the Driver’s Seat Blog for Teens Drive Smart, we began to reminisce about our driving tests and how great it would have been if we had a program like Teens Drive Smart when we had started driving. He felt compelled to tease me about the fact that, while I passed the task at my driver’s test, to this day my parallel parking remains abysmal. For the record, I can do it; it just takes me a try or two… or three.

It was at this point that I said, “Speaking of driving. What is driving a tank like? Is it hard? Are there tons to knobs and buttons? Is the steering wheel huge, like the ones on buses?”

My cousin, known in our family for his subtlety and tact, looked at me blankly for a second, sipped his frozen mocha coffee and said: “It’s like driving a tank.”

I nodded. That was all the answer I was going to get, and not for nothing, it was really all the answer I needed. Driving a tank is exactly like you think it would be: like driving a tank.

We moved on to discuss baseball. Go Mets!