If there is one thing you cannot criticize about a woman’s ways, it’s how she drives. That’s like provoking a country armed with nuclear weapons. You can tell her that it’s bedtime and you’re too tired for any midnight delight and she’ll curse you for it. But in the morning she will still love you like something happened the night before (when all you did was pass out and snore five seconds as soon as you hit the sack). But when you poke fun at how horrible she drives, then you might as well raise Cain.
Learning to drive used to be so difficult until my brain started figuring out how things really worked. The more I drove, the better I got. My first accident which almost caused me my license was when I turned too fast on a neighborhood curve and hit a fire hydrant. I swore. I thought that would be the last of my living breath. The car was going so fast but I didn’t step on the brake, since I knew I was gonna make it back on the road clear. It was a quiet Spring day. When I looked back at the scene of the crime, it was all dust and dirt. I didn’t even know there was a fire hydrant until a cop reported it.
In most countries you don’t even need to drive. Where my parents lived in metropolitan Manila it would be a torture to even own a car. It has been forever since I last rode a bus in that city.
But I love driving now. To me, it means freedom and sporting an apple-red sports sedan. I am so in love with my car that I can’t afford to ram another fire hydrant, even if the insurance company pays for it. (My husband said that fire hydrant on York Street is actually mine now. Get that?? That fire hydrant belongs to me!)
I have a lazy left eye (the optometrist called it amblyopia). I didn’t even know I had it till I took my visual test on driving. But that is not an excuse to berate my driving. Do it again, and World War 3 will commence.
