DRIVING LESSONS
See the driveway in the
picture above? That’s my driveway. You can only see about a fourth of it from
the picture and it looks pretty drive-able, doesn’t it? Most of the snow appears to have melted so it
seems like any driver with four-wheel drive should be able to navigate their
way out to the road with ease.
I’m not just any driver. I am
a lily-livered, ice-phobic, scaredy cat. Plus, the first section of this
driveway faces south. It melts off quickly making it incredibly deceptive. At
the top of that hill, there is a slight turn to the left. You must make that
turn while your back wheels are desperately
trying to gain traction on the last fragment of still-ice covered slope. And you are turning on
to an extremely slick section that has
definite opinions about your right to stay on the road at all.
Further down, there is a
sneaky straight stretch with lots of ice lining the three inch deep tire
tracks. That ice is just the right height to push your tender sidewalls around,
jouncing the car from one side of the track to the other.
Below that? Another icy turn
that never receives sun. It is tilted the wrong way and wants nothing more than
to throw your car over the very steep embankment to the left. I once left a vehicle seesawing on
the ledge: two wheels spinning in open air.
Finally, the last downhill slope, the one that leads to the
hardtop road, could qualify as a luge run in the Olympic Games. It’s straight,
so you’re okay if you don’t use your brakes. Just better hope there are no cars
barreling towards you as you reach the finish line. You won’t be able to stop.
Okay, okay! My husband would
tell you that my description of this driveway is exaggerated. Supreme
hyperbole! But, he’s not me. He grew up driving in snow and ice on curvy,
treacherous roads. I did not. I learned in driver’s school how to turn my car
into the slide if ice took over, but that doesn’t work on my driveway. Turning
into the slide just insults the ice walls lining the track and they push back,
forcing your back end even further towards that precipitous drop.
So, today, I had driving
school with my snow and ice certified driving husband. He made me drive in and
out of the driveway four times in a row. By the second time, my palms were so slick that they were sliding around on the steering wheel and my knees were like noodles in a pot of
boiling water.
With instructions as vague as
“Stay in the track!” which I thought I was trying to do, he coaxed me up, over
and through. Now, I am safely home, in
my office, staring at my nemesis out the window. After four trips out to the
mailbox and back, you would think I would be brimming with the confidence to
tackle that driveway and get to work tomorrow. But, I am not.
When I ride with my hubby, in
and out, I close my eyes and say a little prayer until we roll to a stop at the
end. I can’t do that when I am behind the wheel, although perhaps the result
would be better and my wheels would just follow the track on their own accord.
We’ll see what happens tomorrow. You say a prayer for me, and I'll wear a seatbelt. And, if it’s too bad, I will abandon it all and walk back in.
