You, In the Backseat! Ten Minutes: No Talking.
I am not a nervous driver. I’m not! I’ve been driving since I was sixteen and I have a clean driving record. Parking tickets DO NOT COUNT! I’ve been behind the wheel on cross-country trips on more than one occasion. [Stupid Calgary.] My silver Hyundai Pete has a standard transmission and I am always considerate of backseat passengers when gliding off the clutch to ensure smooth transitions. I am comfortable behind the wheel of a car.
Not something I came by naturally, I’ll openly admit. I was allowed to go for my learner’s permit at age sixteen without so much as a go-karting experience under my belt or even a general fondness for Indy 500 video games. There was one condition to my driving education: Mr. Grumpy-pants was not allowed to teach me. Mom felt he was too aggressive and wanted to protect me from picking up his racecar driving fantasies. (A little late considering the eight years I had already spent with him as one of my primary chauffeurs, but, whatever.) Mom survived two lessons with me behind the wheel and her instructing from the passenger side. The first: along a dirt country road with no one else in sight while I got a feel for the gas and the break. The second: driving five minutes to the neighbourhood Becker’s where I promptly botched all attempts to turn left. As she entered the house, nerves all affray, after the second driving lesson, she muttered “[Grumpy], you teach her. I don’t have the patience.” Then she downed a tranquilizer with a glass of wine.
And Mr. Grumpy-pants turned out to be the best defensive driving teacher I have ever needed. I mastered emergency braking, parallel parking, and proper highway merge techniques long before I ever sat in the car with an insurance-industry qualified Driver’s Ed teacher. All that, and there was only one incident where I mistook gas for brake and almost ended up through the store front of that neighbourhood Becker’s! No matter, Mr. Grumpy-pants, myself, and the Becker’s all lived to buy another Slurpee. And I learned that a good deal of “don’t panic” goes a long way behind the wheel of a car.
At the end of university I took a road trip down to New York State with my thesis group, to present our final project to our sponsor company. We had four drivers for the eight hour drive, so no big deal. D_____ took the first leg of the drive and promptly lost everyone’s confidence in his driving skills by getting us lost. Before we had left our university campus. I took the second leg of the drive and got us across the border. M___ took the third leg of the drive and played speed-up-slow-down-change-lanes-for-no-reason-and-switch-the-radio-dial-as-if-she-were-surfing-satellite-television-for-porn for the longest fifty miles of my life. Then she got pulled over by the State Trooper for speeding. Oh, bra-vo! As the trooper approached the car, she realized that she hadn’t actually remembered to bring her Driver’s License with her. Oh! Bra---vo! Then she sweet-talked the Trooper-with-the-very-large-firearm into letting her off the hook. This was pretty impressive given the fact that I was wearing the Please-Officer-I’m-Too-Young-To-Go-To-Jail look on my face. But, because she did not have her License on her, we had to switch up drivers yet again before we could continue the journey. Lastly, our resident Master’s student A_____ took his turn behind the wheel. Within ten minutes, he almost ran another driver off the road when he cut into the passing lane. I told him to pull over and took the wheel for the rest of the remaining six hours nonstop. ALSO during that roadtrip? The back-end of the van got clipped by a deer that I had to swerve to miss. Did I let someone else drive after that? Hell no. There was no way any of them were getting back behind the wheel!
So I am not a nervous driver. And I’ve long since outgrown the reckless phase too. But you know what I hate? I hate people who make me feel as if I ought to be a nervous driver.
It irks me that an old friend of mine, with a spotty driving record of her own, always used to hold onto the door handle of the passenger side for the entire ride – like she was prepared to open the door and ninja roll to safety while I was driving a comfortable 115 km/h along a dry highway. On a clear day! On a Sunday afternoon! In the middle of Nebraska! (Okay, maybe not Nebraska, but clearly I mean this wasn’t the Indianapolis 500 cutthroat stakes.)
Also I have another friend who is ridiculously particular about her car. She loooooooves it. And her boyfriend? Always makes me feel as if I should be more careful. He always cocks an eyebrow at me as I flip on the turn signal like “Are you sure you want to leave that ‘til the very last second? It’s not safe.” Dude, if my Dad – the king of pokey safe driving – has proclaimed me a safe driver, why on earth does your eyebrow of judgment bother me? Boyfriend is the kind of guy who will stand in the driveway and make the hand gestures to let me know exactly how much space you have to weasel out of my parking spot without bumping my friend’s car. (Which, did I mention she loooooooves?) One time he made me so nervous that I slipped the gear and stalled the car with a lurch. And bumped friend’s car. OH NO! Mind you, I was going like negative two kilometers an hour, so it’s not like I even left a scratch. THANK GOD.
Today I had a backseat driver in a full car on the way to a business lunch. As I turned left out of the parking lot and into traffic, he screamed like a little girl that I was going to kill them all. Hey man, Pete’s got pep! So relax already. I know you’ve been riffing on me, just assuming that I was a bad driver for the past few weeks in anticipation of this business trip, but how about you keep your soprano scream to yourself while we have a client in my car? Even my Mom doesn’t flinch when I turn left anymore.
Trust me, I know what I’m doing.
Not something I came by naturally, I’ll openly admit. I was allowed to go for my learner’s permit at age sixteen without so much as a go-karting experience under my belt or even a general fondness for Indy 500 video games. There was one condition to my driving education: Mr. Grumpy-pants was not allowed to teach me. Mom felt he was too aggressive and wanted to protect me from picking up his racecar driving fantasies. (A little late considering the eight years I had already spent with him as one of my primary chauffeurs, but, whatever.) Mom survived two lessons with me behind the wheel and her instructing from the passenger side. The first: along a dirt country road with no one else in sight while I got a feel for the gas and the break. The second: driving five minutes to the neighbourhood Becker’s where I promptly botched all attempts to turn left. As she entered the house, nerves all affray, after the second driving lesson, she muttered “[Grumpy], you teach her. I don’t have the patience.” Then she downed a tranquilizer with a glass of wine.
And Mr. Grumpy-pants turned out to be the best defensive driving teacher I have ever needed. I mastered emergency braking, parallel parking, and proper highway merge techniques long before I ever sat in the car with an insurance-industry qualified Driver’s Ed teacher. All that, and there was only one incident where I mistook gas for brake and almost ended up through the store front of that neighbourhood Becker’s! No matter, Mr. Grumpy-pants, myself, and the Becker’s all lived to buy another Slurpee. And I learned that a good deal of “don’t panic” goes a long way behind the wheel of a car.
At the end of university I took a road trip down to New York State with my thesis group, to present our final project to our sponsor company. We had four drivers for the eight hour drive, so no big deal. D_____ took the first leg of the drive and promptly lost everyone’s confidence in his driving skills by getting us lost. Before we had left our university campus. I took the second leg of the drive and got us across the border. M___ took the third leg of the drive and played speed-up-slow-down-change-lanes-for-no-reason-and-switch-the-radio-dial-as-if-she-were-surfing-satellite-television-for-porn for the longest fifty miles of my life. Then she got pulled over by the State Trooper for speeding. Oh, bra-vo! As the trooper approached the car, she realized that she hadn’t actually remembered to bring her Driver’s License with her. Oh! Bra---vo! Then she sweet-talked the Trooper-with-the-very-large-firearm into letting her off the hook. This was pretty impressive given the fact that I was wearing the Please-Officer-I’m-Too-Young-To-Go-To-Jail look on my face. But, because she did not have her License on her, we had to switch up drivers yet again before we could continue the journey. Lastly, our resident Master’s student A_____ took his turn behind the wheel. Within ten minutes, he almost ran another driver off the road when he cut into the passing lane. I told him to pull over and took the wheel for the rest of the remaining six hours nonstop. ALSO during that roadtrip? The back-end of the van got clipped by a deer that I had to swerve to miss. Did I let someone else drive after that? Hell no. There was no way any of them were getting back behind the wheel!
So I am not a nervous driver. And I’ve long since outgrown the reckless phase too. But you know what I hate? I hate people who make me feel as if I ought to be a nervous driver.
It irks me that an old friend of mine, with a spotty driving record of her own, always used to hold onto the door handle of the passenger side for the entire ride – like she was prepared to open the door and ninja roll to safety while I was driving a comfortable 115 km/h along a dry highway. On a clear day! On a Sunday afternoon! In the middle of Nebraska! (Okay, maybe not Nebraska, but clearly I mean this wasn’t the Indianapolis 500 cutthroat stakes.)
Also I have another friend who is ridiculously particular about her car. She loooooooves it. And her boyfriend? Always makes me feel as if I should be more careful. He always cocks an eyebrow at me as I flip on the turn signal like “Are you sure you want to leave that ‘til the very last second? It’s not safe.” Dude, if my Dad – the king of pokey safe driving – has proclaimed me a safe driver, why on earth does your eyebrow of judgment bother me? Boyfriend is the kind of guy who will stand in the driveway and make the hand gestures to let me know exactly how much space you have to weasel out of my parking spot without bumping my friend’s car. (Which, did I mention she loooooooves?) One time he made me so nervous that I slipped the gear and stalled the car with a lurch. And bumped friend’s car. OH NO! Mind you, I was going like negative two kilometers an hour, so it’s not like I even left a scratch. THANK GOD.
Today I had a backseat driver in a full car on the way to a business lunch. As I turned left out of the parking lot and into traffic, he screamed like a little girl that I was going to kill them all. Hey man, Pete’s got pep! So relax already. I know you’ve been riffing on me, just assuming that I was a bad driver for the past few weeks in anticipation of this business trip, but how about you keep your soprano scream to yourself while we have a client in my car? Even my Mom doesn’t flinch when I turn left anymore.
Trust me, I know what I’m doing.
posted by nerdifer at 12:15 a.m.
2 Comments:
switch-the-radio-dial-as-if-she-were-surfing-satellite-television-for-porn
Looooooooooooooooooooooves this!
:)
But thank you for not referencing MY driving skills...I was waiting...you know I was.
Ahem. My Dad would like me to note that even though I referred to him as the king of pokey driving, he does IN FACT have a 40-year spotless driving record. Let it be known!
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