Humour
Write for
All
Humour
|
Learning To Drive A Manual |
||
|
(Or Chased By A Tram In Amsterdam) |
||
| I learned to drive in an automatic. The first car I bought was an automatic, | ||
| so I didn't learn to drive a manual. | ||
| Then I visited my grandmother in Holland. My grandfather had recently | ||
| passed away and my family decided to keep his car for me to use during my | ||
| visit. In Holland you cannot get a license without learning to drive a manual. | ||
| Nearly every car has a manual transmission. My uncle looked very | ||
| disappointed that I wasn't able to drive the car. | ||
| "I will teach you. It's easy!" he said and tried to explain the delicate | ||
| balance between releasing the clutch and pushing the gas pedal. | ||
| Sure it is I thought, making the car hop and skip across the parking lot. | ||
| "More gas. More gas." my uncle kept saying. I'd give it more gas and the | ||
| car would screech ahead scaring me so badly I'd hit the brake and stall | ||
| again. Between the screeching and the gnashing of gears I was putting the | ||
| car through pure torture. After a while I wasn't sure if it was my gears or | ||
| my uncles' teeth that were grinding. | ||
| Once I learned to get into first gear, I found that second and third weren't | ||
| so bad. Before long I felt more comfortable cruising around the block. | ||
| My uncle also relaxed a little, until we left the neighbourhood to try the larger | ||
| thoroughfares. I turned left at a light neatly into the left lane and sped up -- | ||
| second gear, third, no problem! | ||
| "What are you doing? Move over. Move over." my uncle shouted. | ||
| I looked in the rear view mirror expecting flashing lights. Quickly I merged | ||
| into the right lane. Apparently the left lane is strictly for passing and you | ||
| get fined for staying in that lane. What a concept! Wouldn't that make | ||
| Deerfoot Trail a lot easier to traverse? | ||
| Now I was ready for bigger and better things -- parking. Parallel parking | ||
| was never my strong suit. Now I not only had to parallel park, but also try | ||
| to do it in a manual and on the left side of the road. Suddenly I was the | ||
| neighbourhoods' nightly entertainment. Out of the corner of my eye I saw | ||
| curtains move. I felt all eyes on me and imagined the snickering. | ||
| "Hurry, there is that silly Canadian girl trying to park again. Yesterday | ||
| it took six tries. Maybe she'll set a record." I wonder if they placed bets. | ||
| Usually Grandma was with me -- always patient. never complaining or | ||
| judgmental. She just sat there and smiled. | ||
| Toward the end of my visit the neighbours either got bored or I got better. | ||
| I didn't see nearly as many curtains move. | ||
| Holland is a very flat country. The biggest hills are dykes that keep the water | ||
| out. Coming back from a visit with my aunt Bep I had to drive up one of | ||
| these dykes onto the road that would take us back home. My uncle forgot | ||
| one major lesson -- how to drive away when you are stopped at the top of | ||
| a fairly steep incline. There I was with my mom, aunt and grandmother in | ||
| the car, stuck at the top of a hill and I didn't know how to get away. The car | ||
| rolled back each time I took my foot of the brake and I would panic. | ||
| Every time I tried, the top of the hill got a little further away. | ||
| Outside the butcher shop on the corner, three men were doubled over laughing. | ||
| I swore at them in Dutch. It must have been a bad word, because it made | ||
| my grandmother blush and the men laugh even louder. | ||
| Finally I decide to go for it. I'm sure my clutch was smoking when I roared | ||
| around the corner through a stop sign. At least I gave those three men | ||
| something to talk about for a couple of days. | ||
| After that experience you would think I'd be ready to quit, right? But no, | ||
| I had to take on Amsterdam. Thousands of cars, millions of bikes, trams | ||
| and busses all battling for a piece of the road and I had to get into the | ||
| middle of that. | ||
| I was taking my cousin Annette to the Rijks Museum. Everything went | ||
| smooth until we got onto this roundabout and didn't know where to exit. | ||
| Around and around we went. Suddenly the blast of a horn sounded behind | ||
| me. In the rear view mirror I saw a tram bearing down on me. Heavy traffic | ||
| surrounded me. No place to go and this tram was getting closer. By now | ||
| my cousin was laughing so much she was going limp and sliding down the | ||
| seat. Finally I managed to merge into another lane and the tram rushed | ||
| past me, the conductor shaking his fist at me. That wasn't the only thing | ||
| that was shaking at that moment. | ||
| The end of three weeks came too quickly. On the flight back to Canada I | ||
| thought about how nice it would be to have a pilot license. I learned to drive | ||
| a manual. How hard could it be to learn to fly? No problem -- unless trams | ||
| get wings. | ||
|
Marion de Man |
||
|
***** |
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
 About
Me |
|
Articles |
|
Humour |
|
Essays |
|
Music |
|
Poetry |
|
For Kids |
|
My Family |
|
Pets |
|
Links |
|
E-mail |
|
Home |
|
Guestbook |