It’s ridiculous! Absolutely insane. It’s why there’s road rage and an abundance of lawyers and therapists in the world…
let me clarify a little. Stephan bought a car last night. A 1995 Ford Escort. It’s pretty much like his last one, except the brakes work, it’s more-or-less one very pretty shade of teal, fairly un-dented, and most parts of it work. It’s a manual. He likes manual cars. I don’t know why. I know his excuses, but I think that there was some traumatic event in his childhood that he is suppressing, and EX-pressing by punishing himself with his vehicle.
Anyhow, I’ve been asking and begging and pleading with him to teach me to drive a stick-shift. So, today he gave me my first manual-car-driving lesson. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Push in the clutch, now let your foot off the break (but don’t roll backwards… it’s magic) and push on the gas, the let off some and push gas in as letting clutch out. But don’t daudle in the middle area of the clutch, or you’ll make the car do bad things and the air stink. Now once you master that (it took me a loooooong time) drive, and shift into second. Push in clutch, shift, keep driving, don’t stall. So on and so on. Then stop, neutral, clutch in, reverse, clutch out as gas in, turn steering wheel, break with right foot, clutch in, break in, neutral, emergency break, car off.
It all sounds so simple and innocent. LIES I tell you. ALL LIES! It was more stressful and confusing than lerning to drive in the first place. Why on EARTH would ANYONE drive a manual car when there are these nifty things called automatics available now? WHY?
I will be sticking with my automatics, thank you! But it is good to technically know how to drive a manual. Especially since my “smart” husband insists on having one. Silly Navy boy.
