24 February 2011

Stick shift. Manual. Straight drive.

When I was 15 and learning to drive my brother took me down to the church parking lot so I could learn to drive a manual car.  I did okay with the crash course and even learned how to hold it on a hill mountain.

For those of you that don't understand manual cars, when you let off the brake on a mountain while facing uphill, you start going down-- backwards-- until you can hit the gas while letting go of the clutch at just the right time.

It's a little nerve-wracking.  But I hate going backwards downhill, so I got the job done.

Fast forward a few months and my dad and I are test driving potential cars for me.  We find a cool red car that he loves.  It's manual, and we take it for a spin.  Keep in mind I'm still new to the whole driving thing in general, and it's been months since I drove a manual.

We actually had to stop in the middle of the road and switch seats so we could get back to the dealership in one piece.

So imagine my surprise when he calls and says, "I found the car I'm going to buy you."  I go look at it and call him back.

"Daddy?  It's a stick shift.  Remember last time I drove one?"

"Well, that's the car I'm buying you."

He was paying, so I learned to drive the car.  And... I'm still driving it today!  Over 292,000 miles on that puppy.  I'd say he made a pretty good investment.


Plus, do you know how cool it was to drive a stick shift in high school?  Major bonus points from the guys.

2 comments:

Rob said...

Nice. I can't drive stick shift. I've only tried once and it didn't go well. I think I broke my friends car.

crystal poplin said...

I let my boy friend at the time drive my car and he totaled it and I didn't have full coverage so my dad made me save up 500 dollars and I bought a 1990 ford escort it was a 5 speed so he said u better learn how to drive it so I had to teach myself I always used the emergency break on hills until I got the hang of it cause I was so scared. It was a hard lesson learned but I learned many things ...and I just bought a new car and low and behold its a 5 speed:)

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