stick shift

Driving Stick . . . Sort Of (with bonus commentary from Peter Martin, my friend and driving instructor, in italics)

When you get the VW Eos, a shiny stick-shift convertible, you will want to drive it fast. (I’ve ridden with Sarah before. She means 45 mph.) This will be a problem, however, if you don’t know how to drive a stick shift. Last night my friend Peter (dashingly handsome), who requested he be described as “dashingly handsome” (thank you), took me out to a less populated part of Brooklyn (where there aren’t many cars—and, just as important, where I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew) and tried to teach me how to drive it. I was hoping for wind in the hair glamour. What I got was bucking, lurching, and squealing (the squealing came from Sarah) through a grocery store parking lot. We’d tried to start the lesson in the slightly more glam Ikea parking lot, but got chased out by security guards (armed with hogbö, Ikea’s new $3 police batons—some assembly required). Theoretically, I got the gist of what I was supposed to do—release the clutch while giving it gas—but in practice, getting that timing right was like trying to coordinate simultaneous orgasms. (Both people are supposed to have orgasms?)