Dumb with Driving

My father is an amazing motorist; I’m frequently dumbfounded by his ability to maneuver in and out of traffic with an encyclopedic knowledge of the traffic patterns for all of North America. The man’s surely convinced me that he’s never been lost once in his life nor has he ever peeked at the pages of a Thomas guide. Those are for suckers… and guys named Thomas.

I own two. Why? Because I possess the highly emasculating quality of consistently finding myself lost and of being a bad driver—which are not necessarily unrelated. Not only am I a bad driver, but generally clueless with respect to the dynamics of a motor vehicle’s innards. Guys aren’t supposed to get lost. Guys aren’t supposed to “unintentionally merge” into the center divider while searching for a radio station. Guys aren’t supposed to ask shady car dealers if the jalopy ’78 Mercedes they’re considering purchasing is equipped with brakes on all four wheels. You guessed it: I suck.

As far as I can tell, there are three kinds of guys behind the wheel. I call them dads, dudes and dumb-asses.

Dads are those guys that seem to be (it only really matters that they impress the image onto others) masters of their domain behind the wheel; they would sacrifice their genitals to the gods of disproportionate pain before dejectedly asking directions from the variably comprehensible likes of a gas station cashier. Aforementioned Gods of disproportionate pain forbid that also aforementioned cashier happen to be a woman. Dads can diagnose any mechanical, electrical or character flaw in a car through careful observation of noises or smells and tinker under the hood happily on the weekends--all while frowning at those who would use the word “tinker” in context.

Dudes encompass the largest percentage of male drivers along with the biggest spectrum of driving prowess and mechanical savvy. Basically, we’re looking at the average guy. Everything from the guy who rarely ever gets lost to the guy that will never admit to being lost and eventually finds his way. Dudes can change there own oil, but dudes can also put obnoxious spoilers on an Acura Integra to utilize the aerodynamic advantage in case they should ever have to re-enter the atmosphere after their mission to Mars. Finally, they operate a manual shift in hours of heavy traffic without stalling once or they can be that jerk that drives along the shoulder and flips you off when you don’t let him merge back in.

Then we have the dumb-asses. Dumb-asses inadvertently encourage cities and whole states to consider legislation banning the use of hand held cell phones while driving. Dumb-asses are the guys that complain to gas station attendants after that devious green diesel nozzle forced itself into the gas tank that explicitly warns “Unleaded Fuel Only”. Dumb-asses ask themselves “What’s the worst that can happen?” when the oil lamp blinks furiously. Finally, dumb-asses are frequently told “Maybe I better drive” or “I can parallel park it for you”… by girls. You may have also have heard the guy I call a dumb-ass referred to as a WBW (Woman Behind the Wheel). To be fair, all girls are terrible drivers too. I only say that to be fair.

Random Angry Interjection by a Fictional Reader:
“You’re a jerk, Paco. I’m a girl and I’m an exceptional driver!”

Editorial Response:
Hmmm… perhaps. For a girl.

This pains me to admit… I am a dumb-ass driver. I’m easily distracted, I ask for directions from girls (and turn at the third light where there’s a Weinerschnitzel’s, but if I see a Transcendental Episcopal church I’ve gone too far) and I’ve managed to ruin some cars. I failed my first driver’s license test at the tender age of 18 when I almost killed the DMV lady and myself by turning into oncoming traffic. We were both pretty well shaken, but I still had the nerve to utter “but, why?” when she told me judgingly that I’d failed. I’ve rear ended a lady on an interstate—going what may have been three mph—because I was trying frantically to call a radio station to win a pair of concert tickets. Then there was Bob. Bob was the gentleman who nearly had the misfortune of having a coroner’s report that read under cause of death “’97 Toyota Corolla”. He appeared in my headlights abruptly while riding his bike to work down a very dark street when I swerved to the left and clipped his elbow with my side mirror. He was criminally senile, so I told him my name was Bob as well, gave him a ride to work and bought him off with a pack of cigarettes. God bless America.

I bought my first car on Route One right outside of Philadelphia. For those of you that have the good sense never ever to go into the state of Pennsylvania, Route One is a long road with dozens and dozens of dealerships. Some are legitimate, some are less than legitimate. In a word: notorious. I bought a 1978 Mercedes 300 D with 308,000 miles for $1,200. Super cool car; if it worked properly, I would never consider buying another ever. In an effort to not “get taken” I kept my arms crossed, grimaced and stroked my chin critically as I dealt with the greasy 19 year old salesman. He opened the hood, I took a gander at the engine, stroked my chin some more and said conclusively “hmm, sure is a lot of stuff in there… well, it looks like everything’s where it needs to be.” I kicked the tires to check for… ummm… whatever it is that the act of kicking the tire signifies; as I saw it, it was the equivalent of inspecting a horse’s teeth. I would have known that I was being taken if, after my “kick the tires” test, one had, say, fallen off. I then asked him if the brakes were good, to which he responded “sure” and I followed up with “so, are the brakes on the front wheels or the back?”

Pause. Smile. “Not a car guy, are ya?” As he explained it, the hole that was in the sidewall of one of the tires only needed some air (okay, so my kicking test isn’t fool-proof), the car wouldn’t go in reverse until the transmission had been warmed up and, to my good fortune, the car was equipped with a CD player. The kind where you didn’t just take off the face, but slid the entire radio out of the slot. Great! I had prepared for that by bringing all of my CD’s; try to guess how surprised I was when I discovered on the ride back that it would only play 10 contiguous seconds of song before it jumped backwards or forwards at its own discretion. This CD player was ideal for techno music, but not so much for anything worth listening to. I was happy to know that the car had a full-sized spare in the trunk. I later found that the "spare tire"—the one that said Mercedes on it, so it HAD to be legitimate—was actually a tire from another crappy Mercedes and didn’t actually fit on my car when I needed it (hours later).

My parents visited me in DC in October and on my drive to the airport to pick them up, the rear transmission mount decided to cut its losses and jump ship. So, I happily drove my parents about, knowing that if I traveled above 35 mph, the car would shutter violently. They, needless to say, were appalled. They promised to bankroll another “safe” car as long as I promised never to drive the Yoonkar (what we came to call the Mercedes because that’s how my Nicaraguan mother pronounces “junker”). By November, we’d worked out a great deal with a dealer in Annapolis for a 2001 Jetta. Okay, so a silver Jetta isn’t necessarily the manliest car ever—neither James Bond nor Frank Sinatra would ever be caught dead in one—but it was free. Plus, it gave me the opportunity to learn standard shift, so there was really no complaining from me (at least not exoterically).

By the middle of February, I was a stick shift champ. On one especially cold evening, I was driving back from a dinner with friends when I missed the street I wanted to be on. “No worries,” thought I, “the street I’m currently on runs parallel to the one I want, I’ll merely make a left at my convenience.” When I got to my convenience, I made my left behind a slow moving SUV. Going 35 mph down a small residential road at around 10:30, how was I supposed to see the pot hole (the other guy in the car and I later went on to rename that particular pot hole a number of clever things: pot pool, pot abyss, pot hole-to-hell and, my favorite, pot pourri)? I came to learn that since Volkswagons have aluminum oil pans, they present no challenge to evil, evil, oil-thirsty pot holes. I ripped open the oil pan and continued driving (not really knowing that all my beautiful oil had leaked out immediately) for what was probably less than a mile before the car decided it hated me.

Cars can’t run without oil? Who knew? I came to find out how dumb-ass of me that was when speaking to tow-truck driver and mechanic alike. They’d ask things like “What happened?” I’d tell them. “And you kept driving? Didn’t you see the oil lamp?” Of course I saw the oil lamp! But, who knew that a blinking oil lamp meant “stop driving”? Well, not me anyway.

“Umm, no. No, there was no oil lamp. I don’t even think this car has an oil lamp. It is German, after all.” (How would you answer knowing that you were CLEARLY WRONG and that admitting how wrong you are/were would mean the immediate surrender of the remaining shreds of masculinity?) So, what looks like $5,000 later, I’m without vehicle for a while. In reality, this is probably better for humanity at large. You got lucky, you bastard jay-walkers!

That’s all.