There But For the Grace of AAA Go I

So, I read three blogs. Rabbit's, Dave Barry's and Sweat Flavored Gummi. The third one is written by this girl named Rebecca who has an amazing writing style. She's also just very odd. Anyway, I read the other day that she had a car accident right after picking up her car from the body shop where they had fixed it for two previous accidents. I felt so bad for her. I thought about what I would have done if that had happened to me. I probably would have just sat down on the ground and cried. I mean, that's pretty much what I did every other time I had a car accident.

Cars. They're so weird. My experience with them has been pretty limited. I didn't learn how to drive until I was a senior in high school. I took driver's ed my second semester, and my stepfather used to let me drive (with him in car) to and from rehearsals for The King & I. It always seemed to be raining on those nights, and the roads were long and curvy, without much traffic. I got my license shortly before going to college. Then I only drove during the summer, to work, in Madisonville. I liked tooling around the country roads in my 1978 Ford Fairmont station wagon (after I wrecked the 1979 Ford Fairmont station wagon). The Christmas break before my last semester in college, my folks gave me the Fairmont. I got a job and used the car to drive there. I had parking issues. I drove the car while intoxicated once or twice, something I would never repeat (seriously, drinking and driving is just stupid). After college I drove the car up to Cape Cod and was scared to death by the rotaries and aggressive drivers. It was nuts. Drove back to Madisonville and used the car to commute two hours round trip to work in Knoxville, until I moved to Knoxville and experienced more parking issues. You know, I really didn't like driving. Then drove it up to Ithaca, and it spent most of the time just moving from one side of the street to the other, because I walked to work. Finally, I sold it. It did this thing where it didn't want to start or stay started, and sometimes it would stall at a light. It made me very angry. So I sold it to a developmentally disabled boy who was going to use it to learn. I cried. I loved the car, itself. I scraped all 26 stickers off, removed my dice, compass, fuzzy seat covers, etc., and sent it on its way.

We had good times, me and Griswald.

I drove a few more times after that, for moving, and once last fall on a road trip, but I generally don't like driving. I freak out. I get very nervous. Recently, when my friend needed me to steer her dead car while she pushed it backwards, I couldn't do it. I was so afraid I would do something wrong and end up running into a bridge abutment. Cars intimidate me. Other drivers scare the hell out of me. And in New York, pedestrains are just plain evil.

So, when I read about someone else hitting another car, I just think about how glad I am I live in a place with available public transportation. I'm just afraid that one day I'll want to leave, and I'll have to drive again. It really fills me with mortal fear. I guess the goal for me is to become very rich so I can have a car and driver. Yes, that's a plan.