10/1/97

Driving Me Crazy

She commandeered my car for the first time, and did everything wrong.

    My wife is taking driving lessons.
    No, I'm serious. I wouldn't joke about a thing like that. And if you think I'm gonna make snide wife-learning-to-drive wisecracks, well, you might as well wait a week and read Berlyne instead.
    For a while, it went quite well. My better half -- the wife, that is, not Berlyne -- was under the impression that by law a new driver can only drive a new car. What could I do, I shrugged, citing Basic Law: Woman Drivers (New). It would be illegal for her to drive our 12-year-old car for another 12 years, until she had 12 years experience. "But the car will be 24 years old by then," she complained. I felt bad, but what could I do, I said, the prisons were full of women like her who didn't listen to their husbands, and I couldn't bear to see that happen to my buttercup.
    Eventually Mrs. Mittelmann from down the block, who hates me anyway, set her straight.
    So there I was, the following day, just about to start up the ol' Renault. The wife flung open my door. "Move over, bub," she snarled. Silly girl. She seemed to think we were living in England, where the passenger drives and the driver passenges.
    "But honey --"
    "Don't sweet-talk me," she responded Swiftly. "Just shove."
    I shoved. She got in and took the wheel, but the car didn't move. Of course it didn't. I had the keys.
    "Gimme the damn keys," she commanded. (She has that way with men that had left me no choice but to marry her.)
    "Be sensible," I suggested. "If you drive we'll just be wasting gas. Here's what we'll do. We'll pretend you're driving. You steer. I'll make engine noises. You know, like this:" I pursed my lips and made an authentic pl-pl-pl-pl-pl-pl-pl sound, then revved to a higher-pitched bl-bl-bl-bl-bl-bl, before slamming on the brakes with a frightening r-r-r-r-r! followed by a crashing pkh-kh-kh! 
    I blamed her for the accident; she blamed me for getting spit all over the window, pointing out that the wipers are on the other side of the glass.

I HAD tried everything, but it became obvious she was going to drive my car, with me in it.
    She turned the key, I mumbled the Traveler's Prayer, and --
    "What're you doing?" I asked.
    "Waiting for a break in the traffic, so I can safely pull out."
    I laughed derisively. "What is this, driver's ed theory class? If you're gonna drive, be a real driver. This is Israel, for goodness sake, the next chance you'll have to pull out is Yom Kippur."
    Yeah, I knew I was being nasty. I figured she'd lose her nerve, and that would be the end of that.
    What I didn't figure was she might listen to me.
    She floored it, cutting in front of a speeding cement mixer. "You're right," she admitted. "We might still be parked if not for you."
    She sped up to overtake a white Subaru. "Oh, God, no!" I screamed.
    "Perfectly safe," she explained breezily. "He's making a right turn."
    "How do you know that?"
    "Because he's signaling a right turn, that's how."
    She was right. He was.
    The Subaru promptly made a left turn.
    "Well, how was I to know..." she sniffed.
    I explained that in this country, signaling right means you might be turning right. Or left. Or not at all. And, of course, the other way around if you signal left, or conversely, if you don't signal at all.
    She said she understood.
    "Why're you stopping?" I asked.
    "Yellow light ahead."
    Cars whizzed by us. "Step on it!" I shrieked.
    "It's red now," she said, and stopped.
    I bawled her out. "Of course it's red, because we've stopped, dammit. Don't you know what yellow means?"
    "That it's about to go red."
    "No! That it was recently green."
    About a minute before it turned green again, the car behind us began honking madly.
    "What am I doing?" my wife asked.
    "Nothing," I said tersely, "that's why he's honking. To let you know it's gonna turn green."
     "Yes, but it's red now," she said with maddeningly perfect logic. I groaned at her naivete. "Well, what would you do?" she asked.
    I shook my head slowly, in sarcastic dismay. "I'd give him the finger," I said.
    Which is what she did, which is why he got out of his car and kicked in our tail-light. Mind you, he did have to stop honking to do so.
    "Better slow down," I warned a couple of blocks later, pointing ahead to a bus poised in a side street. "Not on your life," she said, a little too accurately. "I have the right of way. He'll just have to wait."
    But I knew, from my vast experience on these roads, that the driver was probably an Israeli, which means he had no intention of waiting. "Stop!" I hollered. She did, and the surprised bus driver let go of his hand brake and slowly, very slowly pulled out in front of us, and for the next 20 minutes we ambled along behind him. "Oh well," my wife remarked, "at least we're not exceeding the speed limit."
    This startled me. I didn't know there was one.
    "And I'll bet you didn't know a driver has to keep both hands on the wheel," she said, and boy, did I jump on her for that.
    "Shows how much you know," I snorted. "It so happens that in this country the law states that a driver is supposed to hold his cellular phone with one hand and with the other he's supposed to gesticulate while speaking. You just have to learn to steer with your knees."
    "Maybe that's why there's so many accidents."
    "Aw, do me a favor! There's so many accidents because there's so many woman drivers toodling along at the speed limit and stopping at yellow lights. It messes up the natural flow of traffic."
    "Oh," she said.
    By now I'd had enough. "Make a U-turn. We're going home."
    She moved over to the left lane, joining a long line of cars.
    "What're you doing?" I asked, as if I didn't already know.
    It seemed as if the strain of driving was finally getting to her. She ripped into me. "Well, what the hell should I be doing? I'm in the left lane because I'm turning left, stopped because there's a line of cars in front of me, I've got both hands on the wheel, and the only thing I can think of that I haven't done that I should have done is press an ejector button to send you through the roof."
    Don't you just hate when the disciple speaks to the master like that?
    I did not lose my temper. Not me. I paused momentarily, to carefully select the precise words and the correct tone. "Let me put my many, many years of experience at your disposal," I said. "I, too, when I was young --" I pointedly glanced at my wife "-- or, shall we say, inexperienced, I too would have made this same mistake, waiting patiently for the left-turn light to change three or four times before we finally get through it. But take my word for it: nobody waits in line. You go to the middle lane, which, as you can see, is wide open, and cut in front of the first car. Everyone does it. That, my dear, is the difference between learning how to drive, and driving."
    It was unruffled, gracious dignity at its most obnoxious.
    She meekly obeyed.
    So how was I to know there was a traffic cop at the intersection?
    He wouldn't let us turn, commanding us to continue in our lane, straight -- straight onto the highway. 
    Late that night, we arrived home.
    There was nowhere to park.
    "So park on the sidewalk," I said feebly. "That's what they're there for."
    "Not according to my learner's manual, section 6, subsection 4-gimel. To quote: 'Never park --'"
    "All right. I can guess the rest."
    We finally found a spot a few blocks away. It was, frankly, a relief to get out and walk.
    My wife, on the other hand, couldn't wait to get back behind the wheel. (She offered to drive me home. I declined.)
    "So," she said with utter elation, "how did I do?"
    Huh! I thought it was obvious.
    But then again...
    "To tell you the truth," I said, "not bad."
    What I didn't say was that, next time we went out driving together, I was going to shut up and learn from her.