10 & 2

I am a big fraidy cat when it comes to driving in bad weather. We have a winter storm here in Kansas and I am loathe to get out on the road, but tomorrow I have to. I went out on Friday morning, hoping to beat the weather, but the roads were already slick and it was the type of precipitation that sticks to your windshield...and of course I realize that I am almost out of wiper fluid.

I bought a new car 2 years ago. It is the only new car I have ever owned. My first car was a Honda Accord DX hatchback, blue with poorly tinted windows that had bubbled up due to the Alabama heat. I drove that car my last year of high school and all throughout college. She was a bit tempermental, and of course The Colonel bought it on the cheap and it only had a radio, no tape deck to speak of.

Then, I moved to NYC and to keep a car there would have cost as much if not more than my rent and who really wants or needs to drive in Manhattan? It was quite nice really, not having to deal with a car. I remember my company wanted me to rent a car for an event we were doing, but I was too young...I was exstatic to not be able to as I didn't want to drive with all those crazies.

I then moved to Japan and the first year there my only mode of transport was a very old bicycle with a basket on the front. It was supposedly a 3 speed, but I could never get it out of the one speed it came in. I hadn't ridden a bike since I was about 6 years old. And if you have read my blog for any length of time you will know that I am a complete and total clutz of the first degree...so my exploits on the nefarious bicycle were notorious all over Nishigoshi Town - didn't help that there was only one other foreigner in my town. Anything I did in that town was well known, from buying celery to falling off my bike - both of which I did on quite the regular basis.

Once I made the decision to stay for a second year in Japan, I decided to purchase a car. Japanese people don't like to buy anything used. It is a gold mine for any foreigner as we could care less. Once a year, on big trash day you could rack up televisions, VCRs, stereos, etc. None of them broken, just perhaps a year or two old.

So I bought a Suzuki Alto. I personally wanted to get a Suzuki Parsley, but the Alto was cheaper. And what do you drive? A Parsley. I often wondered how they decided on Parsley and not Thyme or Rosemary. And in Japanese there is no "L" sound...so it was pronounced "pa su ri". Alto = a ru to. The Alto was essentially given to me by another foreigner and all I had to do was pay the obscene insurance tax levied on the car. Driving a stick on the other side of the road was hilarious. For the first few months I would slam my right hand into the door "reaching" in vain for the stick shift. Turn the windshield wipers on instead of my blinker. Also, in Japan, you bow at everyone at all times. So if someone lets you into traffic, you bow. If you let someone walk at a crosswalk, you bow. You try shifting left handed and bowing at the same time! The aruto was quite possibly smaller than a "mini". I could park her anywhere. The only weird thing about her was I had to remember to put water in the battery - hello?! That did not compute when the garage next door to my house tried to explain to me why my car wouldn't start after being on holiday. I kept thinking it was my poor Japanese and there was some alternate meaning to the word water that I didn't know yet.

When I returned to America, I bought my mom's old Toyota Corrola, maroon, automatic. I named her Millie. I liked Millie, but it seemed like one year all of her original parts started breaking and I started wondering if I was going to be stranded somewhere, so I finally got the nerve to begin the horrid process of buying a car.

I ended up buying Suzy, a Nissan Altima SER in fire engine red. She's a 6 speed stick shift with every bell and whistle I could possibly get. I love that car. But as technology progressed with cars, and I didn't, I missed the memo on a few things such as traction control. Now, when I learned how to drive in bad weather, you were taught to "pump" your break pedals. Now, with the new traction control and anti-lock breaks, we are told to "stand" on your breaks, they do the "pumping" for you. This is challenging for me to remember at times. I also dislike a feature, a light on the dashboard specifically that constantly flashes "SLIP"...as if I don't know that my tires don't have traction, I need a freaking light essentially yelling at me.

So tomorrow I have to go out. I'm not looking forward to it. I am going to be white knuckling the steering wheel the whole way. Wish me luck.