the never-ending saga of me driving a stick shift.

so last week was a bit of a horror as far as driving to work was concerned. okay, i can live to laugh about it. actually, i was laughing about it 5 minutes after it happened. however, i can assure you that i certainly was not laughing about it while it was happening.

so we needed to have our car serviced. i have just recently mastered (and was somewhat convinced i was a formula one driver in my past life) the art of driving a manual transmission. my guy told me we would be given a car to drive until our car was finished at midas (pronounced in french like me-da). i was actually looking forward to this part. my mom had a friend that was given like a 7 series beamer.

i was not so lucky. the car we were provided was probably birthed in the same year as me (1985). it also had MIDAS (me-da) written across the top in something that looked like house paint. my guy drove the car home and it stalled a few times. he was honking the horn and yelling out the windows because i was so embarrassed to be in this car! so i thought he was just too busy joking around with me which was why the car kept stalling. i didn't realize that the car actually just stunk!!! but in retrospect, the whole thing was pretty funny. him honking and waving out the windows, me cringing in the passenger seat, the car stalling... and then, the best part comes...

he got out and headed off to work and warned me that the car was sensitive to the touch and that i should be careful. i had some troubles (read: i stalled twice in the parking lot before even getting on the street) but was managing okay until i made a left at a traffic light to head up the hill to work. the car stopped. i could not get it to go up the hill. i would turn it on. go into first and gas it, and it would just stop again. she did not want to get up the hill. i just kept rolling further and further backwards and was getting concerned that i was going to roll right into the intersection. the light turned green and everyone was now sitting behind me trying to get their cars up the hill. they began honking.

i did the only thing i could think to do. put the car in neutral. yanked the e-brake on. clutched the steering wheel. and let out all the tears. i'm sure this was a very unusual sight for everyone passing me and everyone stuck behind me. it got even more awkward when they were opening their windows and trying to see what the problem was only to realize i was even weirder than they thought - i didn't speak enough french to explain the situation. i imagined it in the next day's headlines: weird american girl sits in the middle of the road crying her eyes out.

some very kind men had to push me up the hill. they told me the car was very shitty. i told them that this fact came as no surprise to me.

it just goes to show that you can always look back and laugh at something - even the things that have us bursting into tears at a dead stop in the middle of the intersection.

speaking of driving (or not driving, in my case) - have you seen the movie drive? seriously good. is it just me or does ryan gosling get better looking every day?