Another delightful little quirk of Guinevere's that I may or may not have already mentioned is that she does not have a functioning parking brake. Also having a manual transmission, she occasionally gives me cute little Parking Dilemmas, especially if I need to leave the car running. These Parking Dilemmas are mostly endearing, and they were more infrequent back when I lived in Northern Indiana, but since I've moved to Colorado I have begun to become a bit more annoyed with these Dilemmas. There are times that I park - even when her engine is stopped, she is in gear and her wheels are pointing her straight into the curb - when I leave Gwen, half expecting to find her cloven in two by some telephone pole a block or two down hill. But thus far this aspect of our relationship has not strained us to a breaking point.
Aside from noticeable inclines, rural Colorado has brought another joy into my life: fences. Now I am no stranger to fences. In my early days I lived on a horse farm, and hopping horse fences was something done frequently, even for fun sometimes. And my Dad, still living in Kentucky, has gone with my on many walks in the woods, opening a cow fence here, squeezing through a barbed wire fence there. The North Fork Valley of Colorado, however, has shown me a different kind of fence. Here we have many orchards and even more mule deer. We like orchards. Deer like orchards. We don't like deer. We really don't like deer in orchards. We need deer fences everywhere! Q.E.D. And really, in order for fruit trees (or vines) to survive, deer fences are a necessity. Our vineyard makes no exception, and so a nine foot tall fence surrounds the entirety of our 70 odd acre property. Which lead me to my next paragraph.
Deer fences must annoy the hell out of deer. They can see the tender, juicy bark, they can smell it... they just can't get close to it. Theoretically deer fences should be much less of a nuisance to humans, for we designed them after all. And we can easily open and close them at our leisure. True but to an extent. Put said convenienced person in a car trying to drive out of their fenced-in driveway and suddenly replace "leisure" with "slight inconvenience, due to having to stop and wait for your passenger to open the gate and then stop again while they close it." That's assuming you have a passenger. Say you don't. Now you drive up to the gate, park, get out, open the gate, get back in, drive through, park, get back out, close the gate, get back in and you're off. [Do we see where I'm going with this yet?]
Now say that your driveway is slight incline, you drive a manual, you don't have a parking brake that works, AND you don't have a passenger... and this happens on a regular basis. Now replace "leisure" with "...I'll just drive through that [dang-tootin', confounded, sonuvagun] gate!" I never do actually work up the frustration to drive through the gate. Instead, I've - over time - channeled it into a very scientific process that has eventually led me to discover two very special car-shaped spots ,one on either side of the fence. These very special spots are flat enough that I can leave my car idling, in neutral while I open and close the gate, saving the time and frustration of turning my car on and off three times within 2 minutes of leaving my home. [Funny, the trivial crap I grouse about, eh?] Yay trial and error.
Okay. Lots of build-up... ending in Matthew being clever? But he's Dumb, right? Yes. Dumb to trust in his own cleverness. As it so happened, this evening I found myself leaving home for Paonia with the intent of visiting friends. Approaching the gate in the dark, I veered slightly to the left, heading straight for my sweet spot. It's hard to remember exactly where it is, and you do have to be right on it. Sometimes I stop too early and have to roll and tap the brakes a few times to get right on it. [Also, I'm dumb because I haven't realized that this actually takes longer than turning my car off and on again.] Tonight I had to try a few times to get it right. I got out to open the gate. The car looked like it moved a little. I quick hopped in and laid on the brake a bit to be sure it had stopped. I opened the gate. I looked up the road to notice a car zooming down it toward me. The thought struck me: Wouldn't it suck if my car... The thought interrupted my other thought: At this point in movies, by the time it takes a character to think such a thought, it's already too la... shit shit shit! I zipped up to my accelerating vehicle and barely [frantically] managed to slam on the brake, just in time. (In my rush, I also managed to slam on the accelerator at the same time, so the passing car must have thought me quite aggressive - rushing the road then revving my engine...) Phew!
I guess I learned my lesson, though. When pulling out of my driveway the sweet spot is just a wee little bit further back. I'll get it next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment