Deployment Prep: Driving Lessons
NavyGuy is teaching me to drive stick-shift.
Let's discuss why this is complete and utter nonsense:
1) I don't like driving to begin with. As a teenager, I wasn't clamoring to get my license like all my friends. I didn't count down the days until I turned sixteen. I didn't beg for my own car. I don't actually enjoy the act of driving. I find it tedious. Obviously I do it, but if I could simply blink and go from point A to point B, eliminating all that starting and turning and braking and whatnot, I'd be giddy. (Or if beaming me from one place to another instantaneously isn't in the cards, then a chauffeur would be nice.)
2) So when I do have to drive, I like to be as comfortable as possible. With a refreshment in the cup holder next to me. A good song on the radio. Perhaps a snack. The ability to dislocate my shoulder and randomly reach into the seat behind me to reach my coat, or errant box of Cheerios that I want to snack on.
Stick-shift takes driving to an exponentially more complicated level and eliminates any of the possible comfortableness of driving. You can't eat! You can't drink! You can't change the CD! You need both hands, and both FEET to drive a stick shift. One hand on the wheel, one hand on the shifter thingy (I'm still learning the lingo), one foot on the gas, one foot on the clutch, one foot on the brake... it's humanly impossible! You have to watch like six different gauges on the dashboard, which means au revoir to being able to look at your lipstick in the rearview mirror, let alone being able to look at the road. You have to be in peak physical condition to balance the tricky "let the clutch out and push the accelerator down" at the same time (I'm sorry - if I wanted to do leg presses and work my quads, I'd go to the gym... not drive a car!).
It's too much work. NavyGuy and I have had two lessons so far, and I hate it. Don't get me wrong- NavyGuy was a shockingly good teacher. (Shockingly good - like, I didn't want to kill him at all. And we're still married). I just have no interest in stick shift driving. It feels like I have no control over the car. It jumps into gear and takes way too much work to slow down. And don't get me STARTED on trying to deal with all the hills around here; every freaking stop sign is on a hill. NavyGuy is constantly telling me "more gas, more gas" as I'm trying to get into first gear, and it took me two hours to discover that you can brake when you're in second, and it's just too much work. Give me my nice automatic, please.
Who's with me!! Why, if we've advanced to the point of automatic cars, are there still manual transmission vehicles? (NavyGuy, I'm not actually looking for an answer here, k?) Am I the only 27 year old who is just now learning to stick it?
Oh, P.S. - we're doing this because NavyGuy has a stick shift car, and he wants me to drive it while he's deployed... cuz apparently you can't just leave the car in the garage for six months. (You should have seen how red his face got at that suggestion! Like a tomato!)
