The caricature of a differently abled driver
I get into my car, put the key in the ignition, start it confidently, reverse it expertly out of its narrow parking space, and turn the precarious bend outside the gate with remarkable finesse. The car’s wheels grow wings, and I zoom off into the distance with husband and two kids in tow. The kids lounge on the back seat and play book cricket without once squabbling. The husband has a benign smile on his face, and he actually hums a tune (the way tone deaf people do) instead of muttering under his breath…..
I break out of my cognitive reverie. Alas and alack - that’s as far as I’ve ever dared to go even in the wildest of my dreams, and here I bare my soul and reveal my deepest sorrow – I can’t drive a car!
The symptoms have been the same every time I’ve attempted to get behind the wheel – a dangerous rise in the pulse rate, clammy hands, and the perception that my heart has transported itself to my pharynx from the region of the thorax. The in house physician has no remedy for this condition, much less any sympathy. I think I hear him say words such as “melodramatic” and “irrational” under his breath as I give him a succinct, hour long explanation of what ails me.
Voice aquiver, I tell him that it’s not as though I haven’t tried. For years I have sung “We Shall Overcome” every morning (with the bit that says: “Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, we are not afraid today…..” louder than the rest). King Bruce (the chap who shared cave space with a perseverant arachnid) is my favorite role model. I have prostrated myself in devout supplication before Intrepida, the ancient Roman Goddess of weak kneed charioteers. I have regarded the potbellied instructor in the driving school I went to as Her chosen oracle. I have even added an extra K to my name because the friendly neighborhood numerologist said it would turn the wheels of fortune in my favor. It hasn’t. I’ve reached the end of the road, and a No Trespassing sign continues to bar my entry to the elite legion of people who can drive.
Honestly, it’s not driving this mechanical monster that’s such an issue. It’s the other two, three, and four wheeled Goliaths on the road that scare the hell out of this David. I self- examine my childhood to trace the roots of this fear. Did I, as a two year old merrily riding around on my tricycle, fall and get a bump on my head that resulted in discarcuria? No such luck - I didn’t. I am sure the answer lies in past life regression. As a prehistoric, stone age woman clad in a svelte animal print sarong, was I regularly nagged by my husband, the insensitive cave man, to practice driving the family wheel? I was too! I close my eyes and relive the trauma of those days thousands of years ago when I first set out of my cave to roll my stone wheel. I hear once again the caveman’s angry nonverbal communication in the form of guttural sounds which would today translate as “Slow down! SLOW DOWN!!! Can’t you see where you’re going? What the…”
So it is that when I try driving a car on a busy road, I experience a cave woman’s primordial instinct of self-preservation when faced with the threat of rampaging animals of all sizes running amok. And I do what any self-respecting Neolithic woman worth her rock salt would have done – in a show of supreme attitude, flounce off and pledge never to have anything to do with riding wheels again - except in a favorite day dream.
I get into my car, put the key in the ignition, start it confidently, reverse it……….
I get into my car, put the key in the ignition, start it confidently, reverse it expertly out of its narrow parking space, and turn the precarious bend outside the gate with remarkable finesse. The car’s wheels grow wings, and I zoom off into the distance with husband and two kids in tow. The kids lounge on the back seat and play book cricket without once squabbling. The husband has a benign smile on his face, and he actually hums a tune (the way tone deaf people do) instead of muttering under his breath…..
I break out of my cognitive reverie. Alas and alack - that’s as far as I’ve ever dared to go even in the wildest of my dreams, and here I bare my soul and reveal my deepest sorrow – I can’t drive a car!
The symptoms have been the same every time I’ve attempted to get behind the wheel – a dangerous rise in the pulse rate, clammy hands, and the perception that my heart has transported itself to my pharynx from the region of the thorax. The in house physician has no remedy for this condition, much less any sympathy. I think I hear him say words such as “melodramatic” and “irrational” under his breath as I give him a succinct, hour long explanation of what ails me.
Voice aquiver, I tell him that it’s not as though I haven’t tried. For years I have sung “We Shall Overcome” every morning (with the bit that says: “Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, we are not afraid today…..” louder than the rest). King Bruce (the chap who shared cave space with a perseverant arachnid) is my favorite role model. I have prostrated myself in devout supplication before Intrepida, the ancient Roman Goddess of weak kneed charioteers. I have regarded the potbellied instructor in the driving school I went to as Her chosen oracle. I have even added an extra K to my name because the friendly neighborhood numerologist said it would turn the wheels of fortune in my favor. It hasn’t. I’ve reached the end of the road, and a No Trespassing sign continues to bar my entry to the elite legion of people who can drive.
Honestly, it’s not driving this mechanical monster that’s such an issue. It’s the other two, three, and four wheeled Goliaths on the road that scare the hell out of this David. I self- examine my childhood to trace the roots of this fear. Did I, as a two year old merrily riding around on my tricycle, fall and get a bump on my head that resulted in discarcuria? No such luck - I didn’t. I am sure the answer lies in past life regression. As a prehistoric, stone age woman clad in a svelte animal print sarong, was I regularly nagged by my husband, the insensitive cave man, to practice driving the family wheel? I was too! I close my eyes and relive the trauma of those days thousands of years ago when I first set out of my cave to roll my stone wheel. I hear once again the caveman’s angry nonverbal communication in the form of guttural sounds which would today translate as “Slow down! SLOW DOWN!!! Can’t you see where you’re going? What the…”
So it is that when I try driving a car on a busy road, I experience a cave woman’s primordial instinct of self-preservation when faced with the threat of rampaging animals of all sizes running amok. And I do what any self-respecting Neolithic woman worth her rock salt would have done – in a show of supreme attitude, flounce off and pledge never to have anything to do with riding wheels again - except in a favorite day dream.
I get into my car, put the key in the ignition, start it confidently, reverse it……….
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