Many of my friends in New York cannot drive. Imagine how surprised I was, this weekend, to discover that I have become one of them.
I can't stay in a lane, I can't parallel park and I sure as hell can't moderate my speed. Several times I caught myself going 50 MPH on the highway -- a crime that will get you killed in many states, and justifiably so.
I'm not sure when all this happened, but it probably shouldn't shock me. I've never been what you'd call a fantastic driver. I'm nervous, distracted and have little to no sense of where I am on the road, due to larger spatial problems that have also kept me from being able to tell when a flying object is going to smack me in the face. (Softball was fun.)
I also suffer from automotive hypochondria. If I were to nearly get cut off by a Mack truck on the highway, I would spend the next 15 minutes displacing my fear by hyperventilating and imagining hideous metal-on-metal grinding coming from the undercarriage of the car -- an area as mysterious to me as Antarctica or the surface of the moon.
Daydreaming is also a problem. When I'm in New York, I get everywhere on foot. I'm good at sensing proximity, at bobbing and weaving around people and carriages and cars and carts. I can do this while imagining what I should say to this or that attractive young man, when next I see him, or re-imagining a smarter retort for that snotty cocktail waitress. Multitasking, see? But I wouldn't recommend it, when you're behind the wheel.
The good news for America's roadways is that I'll be hanging up my keys once again in two short days. In the meantime, I recommend staying indoors.
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Great tales of the road.
ReplyDeleteWhile driving to NY from VA there was a MACK truck accident right in front of me the truck flipped over. I was going 70 and was able to swerve and get around the whole pile up.
My mother was also in the car, sitting shot-gun, and I don't think the Lord has heard his prayer so many times quite so quickly.
So, I guess I can see why you fear them. But my dream is to one day drive a MACK truck.
the thinking about boys you've seen while driving sounds like an excellent outline for a Crash 2 screenplay.
ReplyDeleteWith the millions of people that descend upon our nations' capitol each Independence day, comes tens of thousands of portable toilets.
ReplyDeleteLast week, I was stuck in over an hour in porto-potty traffic.