Friday 27 October 2017

Women Drivers

I took Velma (my car) to the spa for her pre-winter check up. I usually leave her there for a few days, a test for me to what it's like not to have a car. Velma may be old, and showing her age, but she's good to go for a while yet.

The spa is north of town, on a dead end country road, so there's no handy pickup service as I might have at a dealership. I got a ride out earlier this week and a free lunch.

Today I called my daughter-in-law for a ride, which worked out as she wanted to borrow the van for tomorrow. I hadn't driven her car before, hadn't driven anything but a van in almost ten years, but I figured it would be ok, as long as it was automatic.

The garage was closed at noon, but I had told them I was coming and asked they leave the key for me, and the bill.

We arrive and items were moved from the car to the van, all we needed was the key. We looked in the obvious spots, over the visor, in the cup holder, in the basket between the seats. No key. Not under the seat, under the mats, not in the glove compartment.

I figured the guys had forgotten to leave it. No problem as my daughter-in-law has the spare key. So we were good to go.

I get in her car, and looked about for the necessities. I adjust the seat, the steering wheel and the rear view mirror. Then I try and change the gear and get a spray of washer on the windshield. Oops. My car has the gear changer...the gear shift?...in the steering wheel, the car's is on the console.

Laughing, my daughter-in-law realizes what I've done and we laugh about how silly it was, but old habits die hard. I remember when I made the change the other way, was always reaching beside me used to the gear shift being on the console.

We had another laugh when she went to insert her spare key in the ignition and found my key. Who would have thought to look in the ignition? It was too funny and I laughed all the way home.

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