Driving Lessons

After years of driving, you tend to accumulate anecdotes. Generally, those anecdotes are created as a new driver and, when you're old enough, they seem funny and you seem stupid. But you've learned to laugh at yourself, so the mortification has been left behind with your numbskull youth.

I got to thinking about my driving history from an article in the newspaper about a driver who was absolved of drunk driving charges, even though he had had a blood test and the result was over one gram of blood alcohol content. He had been brought to the cops' attention when, some months ago, he drove to a rural health clinic and asked for a doctor to attend to a deer he had run over. Said deer was outside, in the car. The personnel went, hmmmmm, and called the traffic cops. They took his BAC, but the judge decided that by then it had no relation to the moment he was behind the wheel. That at that moment it could have been within legal limits, only to mushroom later because of the time elapsed and the amount drunk. I'm sure the driver breathed a sigh of relief and has vowed not to succour any other animal he might bump into on an overly merry night.

I remember something I witnessed when I was a teenager in our apartment in Boston. One summer evening we were watching television when we heard a tremendous whack just outside in the street below. We went to the window and saw a car parked on the sidewalk between our neighboring building and another car parked on the street. A guy opened the door of the car parked on the street and fumbled out of it, asking, with what sounded like marbles in his mouth,  "What the hell is this guy doing, double-parked?" It wasn't. The drunk had come barrelling to the side of the street, plowed into a correctly parked car, thrown it somehow parallel onto the sidewalk, and stopped alongside it. I think that if he were to do attempt to do it sober, he couldn't. It was a one-time precision job. 

I have always tried to never drink and drive. When I was single and went out with my friends on weekend nights, I had a personal rule for when it was my turn to take the car. I would drink one or two alcoholic drinks, but no more. And the last would be at least two hours before I had to drive back home. I hadn't been driving very long and I didn't trust my reflexes after drinking. I kept to the rule except for one night. I had driven the car to a disco, and, just as my friends and I were about to go home, we met up with other friends. It was the birthday of one of them and he invited all of us to a bar on the side of the road for some champagne. I didn't like the thought, but I felt it would seem churlish to refuse, so I drank about half a glass. After a little while, it was getting late, and my friends and I went to the car to go home. 

I wasn't feeling as clear-headed as I wanted to be, but I was okay. As we were rolling down a long stretch of road with a traffic light at the end, someone said something that made the rest of us screech with laughter. The light was red and I stopped, still laughing, and looked in the rearview mirror. The traffic cops were stopped right behind us. Thankfully, after the light turned green and I, very carefully following all the laws of the road, went on my way, the traffic cops did, too, without stopping and asking me out of the car for a chat. 

My husband wasn't so lucky, long ago in his youth, though he wasn't driving. They were a group of friends and they wanted to go to a disco, but they only had one car available, and they were twelve guys. That didn't stop them. Somehow, they all got into the car. I imagine the scene was similar to that of the crowded berth in the Marx Brothers comedy, A Night at the Opera. They organized themselves to drive with one guy at the bottom pressing on the pedals, and another guy at the top, looking out the windshield, steering, and shifting gears. I don't think they could have gone very fast, that would have called for expert coordination. The inevitable happened and they were stopped by the cops. The officer took one look and told them to get out of the car, every last one of them. When everybody was out, the cop counted. He rubbed his chin. "Okay, if you are capable of fitting back in the car and driving off, I won't give you a fine." Incentive enough. In less than five minutes the twelve friends were back in and fully coordinated. They drove off without a fine.

I generally drive fast, but one night, a few months before I was married, I must have flown. My then-boyfriend and I had gone in my car with some friends to a disco an hour's drive away. When we came back and I stopped at the first house to drop off, I noticed it was only a half hour since we had left for home. We checked our watches and we all concurred it had been a half hour. I still have no idea how I did it. Shades of The Twilight Zone. 

Some things still happen now, though. My husband's car has a small reserve tank. As soon as the light turns on, he know he has to put in diesel. But, it's not always a good moment, so he leaves it for later. He has left it for too late at least three times. He's lucky, because we have a container with diesel for the tractor that can be used for the cars. So, he's called me twice to bring him the container. The other time was at probably four in the morning, right after he drove off to go fishing. As I was dropping off, I heard the gate open and close, and my husband talk to the dog. Then it opened and closed again and I heard him walking down the road. Later that day when I asked him what he had forgotten he told me, "The diesel. I kept forgetting to go to the gas station and I ran out just down the road." 

The mortification of youth isn't that dissimilar to the mortification of maturity. But laughter wins out.