Clutch. Let out. Little gas. VROOOOOM!
As part of the whole getting-my-car-registered thing, I went to get my safety and emissions testing done today. Which meant my car had to sit around getting tested and then getting its windshield replaced. So I had to take Matt’s car. Matt’s car is a stick shift. I have only driven stick once, when I was 16 and my mom forced my brother to teach me.
It was an adventure. After a brief tutorial, Matt sent me out on my own to brave the main roads. He’s very trusting. But I made it! Mostly… There were a lot of stalls and a couple of moments of excitement and several moments of SHITFUCKFUCKNO!
But here’s the thing I don’t get. How are you supposed to go up a hill in a stick without squealing out of it and or rolling halfway down? There were several near misses as I traversed the hills of Ogden Valley, when you need to let off the brake, which means the car is essentially in neutral as you somehow quickly transfer your foot to the gas without rolling down the hill and almost into a very rich person’s garage door.
Also I never knew you could get foot cramps from driving. But yes. When your foot is not used to clutching every little while, your toes will cramp and cry out in mercy and you will have to beat them down screaming, “Shut up feet and keep going because if we don’t everyone will crash into us and the car will be dead and it will all be bad news bears!”
Kenny tried to teach me to drive a stick shift when we were first married. As he tells it, he instinctively knew how to drive one the minute he sat behind the wheel– (did you imagine me rolling my eyes? Because I totally was!)– and assumed that his new bride was every bit as capable as he was, and therefore gave me a very short tutorial (“First, second, third, fourth, fifth, reverse. Clutch. Gas and break you already know. Ready? Drive!”).
I maintain that it’s completely his fault that I drove his (our) car through the middle school’s chain-link fence at the end of my parents’ street when I put my foot down on the brake (clutch), pumped repeatedly, and got nothing.
It scared the crap out of both of us, and I swore I’d never drive a stick shift again… EVER. In return, he promised to repeat the story to anyone with a pair of ears and mock me relentlessly about how uncoordinated I was, when everyone knows driving a manual transmission is as natural as breathing.
It’s a wonder we’ve lasted for 14 years…
I have tried to drive a stick once. I stalled out 27 times before I could even get it to go forward one time. Now though I am thinking about getting one and forcing myself to figure it out before driving 13 hours to MA. I agree though hills seem ridiculous and for me terrifying.
I drove a stick in high school. I got stalled at an intersection during one of my first weeks of driving for what felt like FOREVER!!! Seriously I was probably there 10 minutes until this guy pulled up along side me and coached me through it. I finally got going again and realized the reason it had been so hard was because I was in third, not first. Ooops. I vowed to never drive stick in platforms again.
[...] means more adventures in stick shift! I’m getting much better. Still I can feel Matt silently cringing in the passenger seat [...]
Adventures in stick. « Life of Di said this on July 6, 2009 at 11:20 am |