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As a TikTok influencer first and a father second, I can tell you with  absolute authority and no small amount of daddy rizz that raising a kid  in Los Angeles is no Sunday trip to Mendocino Farms.

That’s why when my beloved son Yugi-Oh “Vine” Norris turned 15 ½, I  needed to teach him to drive in a way that was both defensive and  click-worthy. After freebooting other people’s parenting vids for six  hours, I came up with my best original idea since “Relatable Things  Sociopaths Do” hit #6 on the self-help charts: I would teach my son to  drive exclusively using the lessons from the Driver’s Test song from the  1997 Playstation classic, Parappa the Rapper.

If you’re unfamiliar with Parappa, all you need to know is  that it tells the story of a hip-hop loving doggie on a journey into  manhood. “Instructor’s Mooselini’s Rap” is a rippity-rap song where the  aforementioned antlered authority figure teaches Parappa how to drive a  car and earn his license. Since the game sold over 1.6 million copies  worldwide, it was safe to say that any instructions in the song had been  vetted well enough to teach my son how to “shoot skidmarks,” as I  assume the race car men say.

I began by reminding my son that  “we’re here, just sittin’ in the car” and that I wanted him “to show me  if you can get far,” to which he replied that wasn’t enough instruction  to get started. “Step on the gas,” I shrieked, filming his adorable  sweaty face as he howled and swerved. Several pedestrians failed to get  the memo that they had wandered on-set of a soon-to-be-viral video and  yes, he made a small amount of contact with a few of their bodies, but  to be fair, fam, many of them were quite old to begin with and likely  had little clout to their name.

“Step on the brakes!” I gleefully sang just feet from a horrified  pedestrian. “Oh, thank god,” he sighed, assuming his lesson was over.  “Now step on the gas,” I screamed again. And off to the races we went,  my little Yugi white-knuckling the steering wheel like Niko Bellic  himself! He tried to slow down as we approached another intersection,  but I recited a key lesson from the song to inspire him:

“When I say boom boom boom, you say bam bam bam! No pause in between; c’mon let’s jam!”

Weeping and plowing through another swarm of pedestrians outside CBS  Studios, many of them wearing fab hot dog and princess costumes for that  day’s Price is Right taping, my sweet baby Yugi became a man  before my eyes, cleverly negotiating the sidewalk to spear through both  glass windows of a GNC and safely return to the road.

Despite my assurances that he was “rappin’ good” so far, he continued  crying and fiddling with the wipers to get the blood off the  windshield. He begged me to let him stop, to turn himself into the  police, but I didn’t become a social media sensation by listening to or  understanding boundaries. Taking a deep breath, I pointed him toward  Sunset and skillfully rhymed, “I’m glad to know which way to go, but it  ain’t gonna stop me so here we go!”

Although it was timed rather  awkwardly for the drive, the song had us stop to check his turn signals  in the middle of the Santa Monica Blvd. intersection. As you may have  noticed in the news reports (yuck, old media- LOL!) this is when the  cops caught wind of our little caper. “Now turn to the right!” I  commanded him, but it was about this time when a cop performed what I am  told is called a “PIT” maneuver on us, and we began to spin out of  control. Lucky enough for the video’s sake, this coincided nicely with  my next lyric, “Woh ho ho ho! Stop the car! We got an emergency, can’t  you see?”

As the cops approached us, guns pointed directly at Yugi’s head, they  had a perfect opportunity to say the next line, “Do you know why we  stopped the car?” but instead they said some falderal about putting our  hands up and stepping out of the vehicle. I tried to correct the cop,  but he was clearly too much of a basic normie to get the reference. They  dragged us from the vehicle, and as you can see on the recovered  footage before they kicked my phone away, I did get to choke-sing, “You  forgot to close the door,” so all-in-all, a pretty successful  recreation!

I have to wrap up this because we’re heading back before the judge  soon, which honestly gives me another great idea for a video. Maybe it’s  time for Yugi to learn how to defend himself just like Ace Attorney,  Phoenix Wright! Objection!

Article by Matt Shore