I don't know about you, but the thought of driving stick in a manual car has always seemed entirely unnecessary to me. Unless I want to be featured in the next "Fast and Furious" installment, driving an automatic car has always gotten me from A to B just fine. Nobody that I knew drove a manual car and I'd pretty much only seen it in movies. Enter my boyfriend - a car obsessed goon that is apparently convinced that all of the automatic cars will disappear eventually and I should learn now before it's too late. Unfortunately, four years of avoiding his lectures about the benefits of a manual transmission could not prepare me for this weekend.
Let me describe the scenario. We are in the woods on a random trail as far away from civilization as possible in Jersey. I am sitting in the driver's seat of a lifted Jeep that is covered in mud. I have my left foot constantly hovering over this extra pedal, my right foot favoring the gas, and the brake being forgotten in the middle. My right hand is fiddling with the gear shift that has a lot more options than the usual Park, Reverse, and Drive. My left hand is glued to the steering wheel and my eyes are glued to the rpm's instead of the trail. A "conversation" is being had that goes a little bit like this:
"You're dumping the clutch!" - What does this even mean?
"Don't let up on the gas, we're going to get stuck!" - Maybe we shouldn't be in the woods.
"Take the car out of gear!" - Maybe there shouldn't be so many gears.
"The breaks! The breaks!" - Sorry, I don't have a third foot.
"I think that's enough for today." - And I was just getting the hang of it..
Not voiced were the (very) many times of silence after I stalled out.
Clearly, my first day of manual driving did not end in him taking me out onto the road. It would have been more believable if he left me in the woods, instead. Despite the tragedy that was my first day, it would be a lie to say that I'm not excited for my next attempt. There's something about learning a new skill that gets me feeling productive and like I am accomplishing something. It's obviously not going to happen overnight, but neither did learning how to parallel park (the thought of doing this in a manual car already scares me). As a completely uncoordinated person, my biggest obstacle is having all of my limbs do something different at one time, but maybe I'll become a master juggler by the end of this. I'm reading up about it and I'm watching stick shift tutorials and videos and I have hope, despite the mess that was this weekend.
The only problem is that I'm not positive he will offer up his Jeep again.. Any volunteer vehicles?
