The end of the road is one of the worst intersections in town. It's at the corner of a road used by a lot of people living in our area to connect up with another road that's two lanes and has a limit of fifty-five miles per hour. Couple that with the fact that it's building up all around us (this used to be "out in the country") so the traffic level is rising, you can see why I hate that intersection (even though I travel it at least twice a day, generally).

So I imagined she had pulled out and somebody had turned short and hit her head-on from the right, or T-boned her from the left, or something along those lines. She sounded okay, though, so I wondered how she kept from getting hurt, since she drives a little bitty truck.

I pulled on some sweatpants, buttoned on a shirt, slipped on my shoes and dug up my insurance card to take her, and got in the car. Once I got on the street, down at the end of the road I saw flashing lights and a gaggle of cars. Oh, geez, I thought, this has got to be really bad.

I got down to the end of the road, pulled off, turned on my emergency flashers, and got out, telling the deputy that I was here to bring insurance papers to my mother, and walked over to the "accident scene."

She had bumped one of those new silver VW Beetles and scuffed up the rubber molding over the rear bumper. You know, one of the ones "reverse engineered from UFOs."

Two units are responding to investigate a scuff mark. No real physical damage apart from something cosmetic.

You've got to be kidding me.

I'm pretty tired of her and this damned truck, though.

First, it's a foreign truck. Like we know anything about foreign trucks? If it breaks down, she's just going to end up having to take it somewhere.

Second, it's a stick. She hasn't driven a stick in ages. I think she got this thing just because I can't drive it.

Yes, I know that sounds paranoid, but the truth is, I never learned to drive a stick. They didn't teach us in driver's ed, and we didn't have a vehicle for me to learn on.

The only time I ever got behind the wheel to drive a stick was when I was working this job doing electronic monitoring of clients in downtown Houston.

Well, I worked the graveyard shift, and the girl I was relieving and I had sat around and shot the breeze until about 2:00 AM. Finally, she decided she should go, but it was then that she remembered that she had parked her car on a pay lot about three blocks away near a homeless shelter.

She didn't want to walk down there to get that car. Being the gallant southern guy I am, I told her, "that's okay, I'll go get it," so she gives me her keys and I trek to the lot to get her car.

Once I get there, I unlock the door, get in, move the seat waaaaaay back (it was a Honda CRX) and put the keys in the ignition. But the key won't turn, no matter what I do.

Fine, I think, I'll go back, get her and we'll run back over here together to get her car. That'd be a good plan, except the keys won't come out of the ignition, either, and I know that she only carries one set of keys, so I can't lock the car back up and go get her (else one of the guys leering over here from the shelter might decide to take it for a joyride).

Much cussing and confusion ensues.

Finally, I realize that I have to release this big... lever in the center of the car. Apparently it's a parking brake or something, and the keys will go in and out of the ignition quite freely now.

Feeling much better now, I turn the key, start the engine, and move my hand down to the shaft to put the car in drive.

Unfortunately, it swishes through empty space. The gear shift is on the floor.

Sigh.

About five minutes later, approximately thirty minutes total, and a total of three blocks in that time period, I'm traveling down the road in her car, transmission whining, going along at four miles per hour and stalling out every third of a block in first gear. She's sticking her head out of the window on the third floor, alternately laughing her ass off and asking me, "what took you so long?"

"You didn't tell me it was a stick!" I shouted back.

She laughs some more.

I've been traumatized completely by cars with manual transmissions. I understand the theory behind them, but I just can't drive them. They require more concentration that I am willing to give the task of driving. Transportation should not require me to engage higher brain functions, because I want my car to be a logical extension of my body, I want my interaction with it to be automatic, I want it to be designed to do the right thing.

To me, that's an automatic transmission.

Anyway, for the most part, this truck has been nothing but problems. It has various little electrical faults (it's eating up bulbs like there's no tomorrow). She discovered that she has to get her inspection done (it's due in February), so she was checking all the bulbs.

Since the last time we checked (about three months ago, mind you,) she has a parking light and a turn signal out. Hmmm.

The trick is, you start replacing bulbs on this thing, and it does... things. It falls into "can't happen" conditions. It does weird things that seem like fusebox problems, and when you check the fuse and put it back in, it does something new. You replace all the bulbs for a given turn indicator and it does something new. You take the ground off and put it back and it does something else.

And somehow this is my fault that I can't figure it out.

Finally I gave up. She was berating me about the whole thing, and I just picked up everything, put the lens covers back on, and said, "fine, if I don't know anything, then you do it."

She got them all fixed, finally, along with my grandmother and grandfather out there, after about an hour of fidgeting with it.

After she left the house this morning to report the accident, though, I looked out as she left - her parking light on the rear is out again.

I'm so glad they know everything.

restlessmind