I drive stick, son

I bought a "new" car this month - the first I've owned since 2004 when I drag-raced on the highway with a slightly souped up v-6 sporting a simple cold air kit that could push 140 without even feeling like that tranny shifted. . .ohhhh those were the days. Unfortunately, I crashed into a lot of stuff and got a lot of tickets. Between 1997 and 2004, I had 5 cars.

The car I bought has a manual transmission, so my friend is teaching me how to drive it. Yesterday was our first lesson and it was in the very same parking lot that I learned to drive in the first time around. Since it was my friend and not my dad, there was a lot less yelling and a lot more urging to play bumper cars with the other trainee drivers tooling around the lot in mini-vans. She kept offering me prizes to show them "what it was like." I was not on board with this, just to be clear.

I stalled a lot, can't drive in reverse and not so hot on making full stops. I prefer to do a slow coast through intersections and even had to sit out an entire green light. My instructor continually reached over and popped on the hazard lights so that I could take a deep breath and talk out what was wrong. Her biggest goal for the day was to get me to stop and start on an uphill incline. I did this successfully, after letting four different cars at the 4-way stop go by me. I burned rubber, squealed the tires and cranked that mofug to fifteen miles an hour in first gear! Woooooh! We approached a second light on a really big hill and I cranked it again to avoid a red light. I did almost fifty miles per hour, twenty-five over the speed limit, in front of a police station even, so that I wouldn't have to stop. She told me to stop speeding up so much and I refused.

I actually hate driving, the idea of owning a car, dealing with mechanical issues, and the regular purchase of fossil fuels so this all feels like a very big deal for me. I took myself off the road as a service to the community years ago and now here we are. I will be a full-time driver again. I technically own a piece of property valuable enough that it will require an insurance policy. I feel roots growing. . .or maybe I just need to clip my toenails. . .

I didn't crash into anything or cause any property damage so we celebrated with beer and shawarma. Ruth Bader Catsburg woke me up this morning to get the blinds open because we have a clear view of the neighbor's roof and there is a dead squirrel on it. She then conducted a vigil of the dead squirrel for the next three hours. Happy MLK Day!