PLEASE STAY BACK

In true M style, she took the morning off work in order to go pay the guy for her car. Naturally, the half day turned into a full day off work when she decided that she just couldn’t wait to drive her new car! Problem is, the car is a standard and the only experience M has driving standard is by watching those helpful videos on YouTube. So, sometime this morning, there was a girl, on a hill, with her four-ways on. She kept rolling back, down down down until she pulled the emergency break and sat there. Luckily, some STRANGER got out of his own car, he was dubbed “Hot Paul”, and helped her out of the ridiculous situation. They actually ended up going for lunch together! Wow, love born out of idiocy.

B went down after work to drive the car home for her, since driving it herself didn’t go so well. She noticed that the door lock was punched in, the alignment was brutally off, the clutch was going and the window was stuck down. OH WELL!

Then the time came. B had to help M learn how to drive 5-speed. I got several texts from B informing me of how terrible the experience was and that she has never been with someone who drives so badly. It was actually so bad that a sign was needed. Yes. A giant, pink sign that clearly states, “LEARNING TO DRIVE STANDARD – PLEASE STAY BACK.”



Despite my desire not to speak to M or see her new car, I couldn’t starve myself of the joy of seeing her fail. So the girls swung around to pick me up and off we go! REV REV REV. Wow. I don’t know how to drive standard transmission either, ok? I would probably be terrible at it too, but that’s why I wouldn’t go balls deep and buy a car that I didn’t know how to drive. We stalled at 90% of the stops and stalled on 100% of the hills. Actually, we didn’t just stall on the hills – we peeled out. Those brand new tires are laying on the streets of L-Town right now. I don’t even know HOW to screech my tires, let alone wake the neighbours up with a full on burn out.

Then they drop me off, and the plan is for M to drop B off at home and then drive back to her Grandparent’s house where she was spending the last few days. That would have gone reasonably well, if M hadn’t forgotten essentially everything that B had taught her for the last 5 hours.

B informed me that as soon as I got out of the car, M went blank. Turning left, M stalls. The light goes green – she stalls. The light goes green – she stalls. She, and everyone behind her, missed 3 sets of lights. B had to change places with her because she was physically unable to get the car through the intersection. So they pull into a side street and go over the basics, again. And then… disaster.
Another left turn. M gets half way through the intersection and stalls. B calmly walks her through what to do to get going again and she stalls. And she stalls. And she lurches forward, and she stalls. And she cries. And she waves her arms. And she stalls and she cries and she cries and she cries. Meanwhile, outside the car, M is blocking 4 lanes of traffic and she is blocking them for a total of 6 sets of lights. Back inside the car, B has gone from calm to enraged. She is yelling at M to get out of the car so that she can get them through the intersection but M is frozen! It took what must have felt like an eternity for her to finally be forced out of the car.

They arrive at B’s house and she flat out asks M, “What are we going to do? You can’t physically drive this car to work tomorrow. What are you going to do when I’m not there to rescue you from the middle of an intersection?” So they drive all the way back to our house and trade cars. M failed. She had to drive her shitbox old car because she actually CAN’T drive her new one. She failed not because of mechanics, or insurance, or anything else that might prevent her from driving that car, she failed due to her own inability. It’s funny how I feel so good but M feels so shitty right now. Weird how that works out!

Miraculously she drove the car to our house a mere hour after she dropped B off. B is pissed that suddenly she’s able to drive it with no problem but they just spent 10 minutes in the middle of an intersection. Absurd.