Ok, so I already posted once today about being all farty. So, I suppose that the bar has been set rather low for blog posts today. Why not strike while the iron is hot and let you all know about my driving experience yesterday? It’s a doozy. And by doozy, I mean completely and utterly embarrassing.
As a bit of background information, when Kristian and I bought our house, we decided that I needed a vehicle of my own. Our previous travel arrangement was that I walked to work, took the T if I could, rented zip cars if I needed to drive somewhere and Kristian got to chauffeur me around a lot. This arrangement worked out well, because I had pretty much all of the essentials within walking distance. And Kristian is a patient, loving man who doesn’t mind dropping my ass off at places.
Well, this arrangement wasn’t going to work out so well once we moved 3 miles away from the closest T stop. A T stop that is on the orange line (oh the horrors, I could just swoon). So, the new plan was that I would take the bus to work, I would complain mightily about having to go anywhere that wasn’t on a local bus or the orange line, Kristian would occasionally let me borrow his sweet ride and I would buy a vehicle of my own for situations where I needed to get something at the store and it couldn’t wait. You know, like if we ran out of cat food. And they looked hungry (if the two of them team up, I think that they could take me).
We decided that I would buy a little pickup truck, so that we could pick stuff at Home Depot (the joys of buying a fixer upper). Because gas is hovering around eleventy billion dollars a gallon, we decided to buy an older truck, from the days when little pickup trucks were actually, you know, little. I ended up buying a 1996 Chevy S-10. It’s very cute and very handy. It’s also, dun dun dunnnnnnn…. a standard.
In theory, I know how to drive standard. An ex-boyfriend taught me the basics in college and Kristian helped me to improve my skills back when he had his Jetta (his new car has a DSG transmission, which makes it very Hope friendly). My version of driving standard involves driving along fine until I stall out. I then get flustered and stall out repeatedly, driving whoever is behind me completely and utterly insane. We hoped that regularly driving a vehicle with a manual transmission would allow me to practice my shifting skills to the point where it became second nature. In reality, it just meant that I regularly stole Kristian’s car and forced him to drive my truck.
It was an imperfect system, but it worked. Sortof.
Until yesterday.
I had plans to meet up with some friends in Salem to take photos. Kristian was supposed to come along. Kristian informed me on Thursday that he needed to go to a family event. And that he would be driving his parents.
Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
The last time I checked, it was a colossally bad idea to drive around people in their 80’s in a beater pickup truck. Especially one that only has two seats in the front. Especially since the passenger seat is stuck permanently at “home-boy” angle. Kristian’s mom just had back surgery. That passenger seat could kill her. So, I decided that it was high time that I faced my fears and drove the stupid truck on my own. I practiced driving around the neighborhood a bit. I seemed ok. I thought I could do this.
Clearly, I could not do this.
I was fine for the first half of the trip. There is a stretch of seven blissful miles without so much as a stop sign or traffic light. I was cruising along. And then I got to the stop and go portion. It was mostly stop. Not so much go. I hit every single red light. I stalled out at every single red light. I discovered that my truck (remember? it’s 12 years old? a bit of a beater?) is not so easy to turn off. I fumbled to start it up again. Traffic backed up behind me. People were honking. People were flipping me off. To say that I started to get flustered would be a bit of an under statement.
To my credit, I made it through about 10-15 lights before I ended up pulling off to the side of the road and collapsing into a crying, sweaty, blubbery mess and calling Kristian.
To Kristian’s credit, he was completely and utterly sympathetic and agreed to come and get me.
I sat in my car and cried hot tears of embarrassment and frustration. I’ve owned this car for almost two months now and I still can’t drive it properly. I should have made more of an effort. I hate the fact that I fold under pressure and stall out a million more times than if I’m relaxed. My sister called to say hi (Melissa, you have fantastic timing!) and I poured out my shame and sadness to her. She made me feel about a bazillion times better. When Kristian showed up, I started to feel almost human again. Almost.
We left my truck at a parking lot to be picked up later and Kristian dropped me off at the designated meeting spot. I managed to tell the story in a way that had my friends laughing with me and not at me. I’m still not laughing. I know that it’s funny, I’m just not ready to laugh at myself yet. Hopefully, I’ll look back on this story in a few years and see the humor in it.
Hopefully, I’ll know how to drive my truck by then.
ack how awful!
if it makes you feel better, I still stall my own car every couple weeks, and i’ve been driving standard since i was 16. my clutch movement has to change with what shoes i’m wearing or sometimes i just tune out and forget what gear i’m in and try to start from 3rd or something. so i’ve gotten pretty fast at starting up again while swearing and hoping the person behind me doesn’t think i’m an idiot. i stall Seth’s car once almost every time i drive it because it’s got a different rhythm than mine. i’m sure an old truck isn’t easy to get the hang of!!!
you just need some more no-pressure practice time and you’ll make friends with your truck. 🙂
Sometimes trucks are just hard to drive. My brother tried to explain this to me, something about torque and gear ratios, or something like that. We had a truck that was just hard to drive, even my dad who had been driving a manual for 40 years said it was tricky. Every vehicle just takes some time getting used to.
My little brother was the one that taught me how to drive a manual. He had me stop on a slight hill, with gravel, and told me I was going to start from a stop without slinging gravel all over the place. I accidentally put the truck in 3rd gear, not 1st, and killed it so many times I overheated the truck. My brother got in to drive it some, get some air going over the engine to cool it off, and realized I had it in 3rd the whole time. Oops.
ask Kristian to take you out and practice a few hill starts. Once you have worked out how to keep it level with just the clutch and accelerator you’ll be just fine. It’s about knowing at what point it “bites”, it comes with practice.
with (()) from the short bus driver =)
ugh. Hill starts. My first car was a standard, that was my parent’s bargin if I learned to drive a stick then they would get me a car. A few lessons in with my dad he had me do a hill start, burning rubber would be a mild description…to this day when I drive up that hill I can still see the marks I made trying to get that damn car to move. Still suck at driving a standard.