Car Trouble

If Tim could, he would totally get a new car every year, or maybe even every six months.  His idea of fun is spending hour upon hour trolling car dealerships, reverently patting shiny new bumpers and stroking soft, supple leather seats.

Myself, I would rather run naked through a brier patch filled with poison ivy while being chased by a rabid dog than shop for a new car.

And that is why we make a perfect couple.  After almost eight years, it was time for me to get a new car, and, rather than endure the whining, pouting and snarky comments that bringing me car shopping elicits, Tim pored over car magazines and the internet, and narrowed my choices down to two, I picked one, and we both drove off the lot happy as little clams.

The bubble of happiness lasted exactly two weeks before it burst.

I was actually enjoying my new car, specifically the "keyless entry" feature before it all went south.  No more digging for keys in my purse like I was trying to tunnel to the center of the earth.  No more patting myself  down looking for the keys as though I was in a Macarana dance off.  Now, I simply had to have my keys and with one touch of the door handle, beep--unlock.  Beep, beep--lock.  It was....magic.

So last Monday, I stuffed my keys into my pocket, grabbed the dry cleaning with one arm, the dog with the other, my purse with my elbow, and my reusable shopping bags with my teeth and headed out to run errands.

Bank? Beep. Beep, beep.  Dry cleaners?  Beep.  Beep,beep.  Christmas wreath?  Beep.  Beep, beep.  Dog park? ----Hmm.  No beep.  Perplexed, I shifted the dog to the other arm and tried again.  ----Uh oh.  Not good.

I checked all the doors, but they were securely closed.  I double-checked the trunk where I had put my purse.  Firmly shut.  I brushed my fingers across the handle yet again.  No beep.  I tried another handle.  No beep.  Another hand.  No beep.  My knuckles.  No beep.  An elbow, nose, chin, knee and big toe.  Nothing.  Chloe's paw, her tail, her nose, the tips of her ears.  No beep.

Aggravated, I got back into the car, pushed the button and it started up just fine.  Huh.  That was strange.

I got back out and tried my touching routine all over again, except this time, I included the five basic ballet positions, a downward dog, part of a pussycat doll routine and a few moves I once saw at the Cirque du Soliel.  Still no beep beep.  Not even a beeee.

By now, I was starting to draw a small crowd and Chloe was looking at me the way I looked at my mom when I was 12 and she danced the hustle at a relative's wedding; equal parts horror, fascination and alarm.

I gave one last valiant effort by removing the actual key from the electronic "key", but even that wouldn't lock the car.  Okay, so now even and old-fashioned, unsophisticated key wouldn't work?  How does that happen?

Since the dealership was less than a mile away, I decided to head over there before one of the people watching decided to call either the men in white coats or the police to take me away (Honest, officer, I swear it's my car.).

As I pulled into the lot, the salesman just happened to be there with another customer.

"Hey! How's it going?"  Big, broad smile.

"Not so good.  My key stopped working."

"Let me see," he performed the same voodoo rituals I had done, to no avail.  "Oh dear."  Not such a big smile now.  Meanwhile, his customer suddenly remembered elective brain surgery he had been putting off and fled, er, I mean left.  "Take it around to the service bay."

When I arrived, the mechanic was waiting for me.

"Let's see what we can do," he declared jovially.

Yeah.  You're smiling now.  We all start out that way.  But you won't be smiling for long. 

He took the key from me and...beep.  Beep, beep.

No way.  Uh uh.  That did not just happen.

But then he got cocky and tried to show off by making it happen again.  This time though, silence...

Frowning, he tried again, and again.  No beep.

"Give me a few minutes," he said, walking away and shaking his head.

I decided to take the dog for a little walk while he was gone and returned to find him writing me a voucher for a cab home.

"It's the strangest thing," he scratched his head,  "the computer is saying the car doesn't even recognize the key.  Do you have the spare key with you?"

Uh.  No.  I don't usually need two keys to run errands.  "Sorry," I shook my head.

"We'll send you home in a cab and call you first thing in the morning.  Do you need anything out of your car?  Because it's locked and we can't get in, and if I use the actual key, the alarm will go off and we can't turn it off."

A.  Of course I need the stuff in my car, but apparently I can't get it, so why bother to even ask, other than to torture me and

B.  What do you mean the alarm will go off?!!?  You mean that would have happened to me at the park?  Perhaps that is a little detail you should tell people when they buy the car?  "Oh, don't ever use your key because that will cause the alarm so sound, deafening you and everyone else within a twelve block radius, but the upside is, there is no way to stop it."

As we walked by the car on the way out, it suddenly unlocked.  Beep.

We looked at each other, startled, then tried a handle again.  Beep, beep.

"Are you sure you don't have the other key?" the guy asked me.

Suddenly, it came to me, a hazy memory of dropping a key in my purse the previous week. 

Oops.  My bad.  Chagrined, I reached into my purse and pulled out the key.  Apparently, they key only locks the car from outside, not from in the trunk, and the key I thought was for my car was actually for Tim's.

"Maybe you could put a colored sticker on the keys to tell them apart," the car guy suggested, somehow managing not to laugh outright in my face.

Meanwhile, I was busy trying to figure out how I could blame the whole thing on Tim and wondering where I was going to get my car serviced from now on.

Driving Me Crazy

At our usual Sunday night family dinner, our fifteen year old niece was talking about driving.  When I admitted that I did not get my license till I was 21, there was an audible gasp around the table.

It may be unusual not to get your license until you are that old, but I had my reasons.  Two of them.  And they were called my parents.

My dad's idea of driving was like watching somebody play Beat the Clock.

"Did everybody go to the bathroom?"  he's ask as we started off on a 2000 mile car ride.  "Cause we're not stopping till we get there.  I figure I can make it in eight hours or less."

Then he's buckle up, synchronize his watch to the local bank clock, get into the passing lane, press the gas pedal all the way to the floor, and keep it there.  He knew every detour, side road and alternate route just in case he hit traffic, construction or anyone doing under 90mph.

"We're five minutes ahead of schedule,"  he'd gloat as we passed a predetermined landmark (that usually had a bathroom we all looked at longingly).

And if he could shave fifteen minutes or more off the entire trip?  It was like his birthday, Christmas and the fourth of July all happened on the very same day.

My mother's driving style can best be illustrated by an incident that occurred my freshman year of high school.

Back in those days, it was safe for the male upperclassmen to "hitch" a ride to school in the mornings.  One of them made the mistake of getting in our car...once.  As my mom bobbed, weaved, coasted through stop signs and generally drove like a contestant in last place on The Great Race, he turned pale, began to shake, and seemed to be either praying or composing his own eulogy.

"You can't believe the crazy woman I got a ride with this morning," I heard him say to his friends after he stumbled out of the car and kissed the sidewalk.

We thought we saw him hitching again a few day later, but it was hard to tell from the angle we had.  After all, pretty much everyone's backside looks the same as they are diving into the bushes to hide.

Finally though, it was my turn to drive, so I signed up for driver's ed.  The poor teacher never had a chance, or should I say teachers.  For some reason, after usually only one lesson each, they suddenly developed some mysterious malady that made them unable to sit in a car.  Well, my car.

The first poor soul decided after fifteen minutes or so of driving around the parking lot, that I was ready to hit the open road.  As I raced down the street ala mom, he cautioned, "A bit slower."

Slower?  I was only doing sixty.  My grandmother could walk faster than that.  Any slower and a snail would pass us.

At the end of the block, I approached a yellow light and instinctively did what either of my parents would do...I gunned it.

"Brake! Brake! Brake!" the instructor screamed as his fingers dug holes into the dashboard and his life flashed before his eyes.

Confused, I slammed both feet on the brake and skidded to a halt with a flourish a Hollywood stunt driver would be proud of.  I turned to the teacher.  What was his problem?  Had he only ridden in a horse and buggy before?

After he scraped himself off the front windshield and realigned his nose, he suggested that perhaps we should save challenges like lights for the next lesson and stick to parking lots for the rest of the day.

Lesson two was a different teacher (Geez, you'd think they could find people who were not afraid of their own shadow to teach driver's ed.), who decided that I was ready for highway driving.  Hehehe.

You'd think he's never been on the Dodge Em's ride at the amusement park or seen an Indy 500 race the way he carried on.  I mean, isn't that why there are two lanes, so you can weave in and out and beat everyone to the exit?  Clearly they needed to screen the instructors better to find people who didn't get dizzy from the scenery flashing by at 80mph.  Back to the parking lot.

And so it went, until I finished the course.  One instructor actually made it through three whole lessons (I believe they awarded him the Bronze Star).

Before I could get my actual license though, my dad decreed that I needed to learn to drive a stick shift since I would be driving my mom's car and not his. (The rule in our house has always been that nobody, but nobody drives my dad's car.  The man could be in a coma with both legs in traction, but if he heard someone even touch his keys, he would hop up and bolt for the door shouting, "I'll move my car out of the driveway!  You take your mom's car.")

And now we come to the real reason it took me so long to get my license.  My dad was not born to be a teacher. I didn't realize I signed up for boot camp when I got behind the wheel for the first time.  It was bad enough I had to work the clutch, gas and shift at the same time, but he was continually upping the ante.

"No, no," he'd correct, loudly, as he made me stop halfway up the hill in front of our house.  "You're doing it all wrong.  How are you ever going to be able to stop on a ninety degree mountain path in a blinding snowstorm with 200mph winds, pulling a tractor trailer and start up again without rolling back 1/4 of an inch if you can't do this?"

Uh.  I'm thinking that if I ever find myself in that situation, I am going to have bigger problems than rolling back down the hill  a foot or two.  How about at that point, I just admit defeat and call you?

"I'm a car," he'd say, standing on the line of a parking space, "park next to me and see how close you can come without hitting me.  Oh, and back in without using any of the mirrors.  You should know where your car is."

Really?  Are you sure you want to do this?  Cause I'm pretty sure I can get away with an accidental homicide charge.  Maybe some community service or counselling.

But my favorite teaching tactic of his was when he (finally) let me out on the street.

"Turn when I say turn.  As soon as I say turn," he'd tell me.

Easy.  Right?  Not so much.  As I'd be passing an intersection, he's suddenly yell, "Turn! Now!" as though someone had thrown a live grenade into our foxhole.

Usually panic-stricken, I'd jerk the wheel, press the gas, brake, clutch, cover my eyes,ears and mouth, pull out the rosary, worry beads and holy water...and end up on someones front lawn shaking like a leaf.

"Let's try that again," he'd pronounce, unruffled.  Patton could have taken lessons from this man on drilling the troops.

But I had had enough.  In defeat (which was probably his plan all along), I handed over the keys and resigned myself to committing the bus schedule to memory.

It wasn't until Tim came along, and in the ignorant, confident, flush of youth decided to teach me to drive.  It has to be a testament to true love that he married me anyway.  Then again, his driving, if not his teaching style is very similar to my parents'.