Driving...driving 30

I have a reputation for being a terrible driver.

Admittedly, this reputation is based in reality. When I first got behind the wheel at fifteen and a half, I was pretty much hell on wheels. Rumor has it that my driving school instructors are still telling horror stories about being out on the road with me. Actually, wait, rumor doesn't have it. It's been independently confirmed by a number of people, including my brothers, who were greeted on their first day with a collection of groans and a chorus of "Not more Glowackis!"

I got my license shortly after I turned sixteen. I went around joking, "At least I passed the vision exam on the first try!" but in actuality I passed the road test on the first try as well; it was just the written exam that took a couple of cracks. Then there were a few requisite new-driver gaffes. I nudged a parked car (...the only other car in the parking lot). I scraped a pole at the gas station (...that was attached to the pump). I punctured a tire on the curb (...and drove on the rim for several miles, wondering why the steering wheel was jerking to the right). I cracked the undercarriage on an icy snowbank backing out of my driveway (...and ignored it...I was late for a movie).

But that reputation is outdated. Apart from those few minor incidents, I've never had an accident. The only time I've ever been pulled over was by a handsome young cop, who told me I was going 45 in a 30 (which was a straight up lie, I was going 37 and not a mile over) and let me off with a verbal warning, his business card, and an offer of "Give me a call if you ever get in trouble." Heh. I firmly feel that when one's sole alleged moving violation bears a striking resemblance to the beginning of a porno, it shouldn't count. Therefore, technically speaking, my driving record is spotless.

Although, as my brother Nick is quick to point out, it's easy to have a clean record when you never drive.

But then he once backed into a parked semi. Which is less in the realm of 'stupid accident' and more in the realm of 'natural selection.'

In any case, it is true that for the past six years, I've only driven when absolutely necessary. Having a car in the city is more trouble that it's worth unless you happen to have a driveway, or a Massachusetts license and street parking permit, or a wealthy admirer who wants to pay your garage fees. None of which I have. And then there's the fact that I just don't especially like to drive. The basic act, I'm fine with: key in ignition, car in gear, foot on gas, go! You want to go to Target from my parents' house in Keene? Great, I know like four ways to get there...we can change it up! I'll be so smooth on the brake pedal that you'll feel like we're floating six inches above the road! I am a suberb suburban driver. Highways, however, are not my bag.

To be fair, it's not the highways themselves that bother me. It's the merging. I find it tremendously stressful to have to weave my way in between two cars that are going considerably faster than mine, with just a few tiny, poorly positioned mirrors to aid me. Same with lane changes. I don't have eyes in the back of my head! What if there's a very small car in my blind spot, and I swipe it because I lack the coordination to turn and look behind me and drive in a straight line at the same time? It's like that scene in Clueless where Murray is teaching De to drive on the freeway, when she freaks out and swerves wildly and he screams at her, "Look with your eyes, don't look with the car!" I look with the car.

Then, there is the worry factor. I'm a neurotic person. I look for things to fret about. I'm the girl who hates going to the circus out of fear that the lion might decide to eat its tamer. I won't go on roller coasters lest my car be the one to jump the track. Every time I drive a long distance, I become plagued with concern that I am going to get hopelessly lost, never to find my way back, and that I'll wind up somewhere at the bottom of a ravine, forced to eat the crumbs stuck in the seats and drink the dew that collects in the wheel wells before I finally die of exposure mere minutes before my body is discovered by a band of adventurous rock climbers. Needless to say, this affects my ability to concentrate on the road. Then, once I get within reasonable distance of my destination and feel secure that I will make it there in one piece, I begin to worry about where I am going to park, and whether I possess the necessary skill set to do so, or whether I will drive around in circles until I run out of gas and am pounced upon by hoodlums in dark sweatshirts and glow-in-the-dark masks who beat me to a bloody pulp and leave me for dead just because it's Thursday, like on that episode of CSI when Greg Sanders ran down and killed one of the freaky masked attackers and was subsequently accused - and eventually cleared - of murder.

(I've always had an active imagination.)

Anyway, none of these things have happened yet, knock on wood, but they could.

Last night, I had to meet my parents in North Leominster to pick up a car so that I would have a mode of transportation to the wedding I'm due to attend this evening. They let me take my mom's Chrysler Pacifica, which is basically a minivan in a slightly sexier outfit. I've driven it on a few occasions, and I greatly prefer it to, say, my dad's Silverado, which is what I was afraid they would bring me. I guess it occurred to them that the likelihood that I would be able to park a club cab pickup on a narrow city street was somewhere in the neighborhood of never in a million years if my very life depended on it. Anyway, the thing handles well, but it's got a lot of buttons on the dashboard, and buttons make me nervous, because when you press them, they do things. For instance, how do I know the difference between the defrost button and the eject-the-driver-through-the-windshield-at-high-speed button? I don't. Thankfully, my parents gave me a brief tutorial: "This is the heater...it looks like heat coming out of the box. This is the air conditioner...it looks like a snowflake. These are the windshield wipers. And for God's sake, don't touch the headlights, they're automatic!" Like one talks to a three year old, minus the high-pitched voice.

One nice this about the Pacifica is that it has a navigational system. However, if you saw the recent episode of The Office which culminated in Michael Scott driving a rental car into a lake, you'll know that they have their shortcomings. Navigational systems are not omniscient. God does not reside in that little box on the dashboard. And when the thing says "Approaching right turn" in its monotone automated voice, and there are four right turns within the next 200 feet, you're not always going to take the correct right turn. Which is how I wound up on the highway going north instead of the highway going south. Thankfully, navigational systems do have GPS, so when you make a wrong turn, they immediately recalculate the route from your new position. I was able to get onto the appropriate highway with only one semi-hysterical phone call to my parents ("Why does this thing lie?" I demanded to know).

My trip between Leominster and Somerville was relatively low-stress. Since I recently learned that it is not legal to listen to an iPod while driving, I put on Kiss 108, and had two important revelations. First, Justin Timberlake needs to take a breather. Second, I hate Fergie. Not just because Big Girls Don't Cry is the worst song ever in the history of music, or because she wear ridiculous hats and sort of looks like a man, but because I firmly believe that musical acts, like restaurants, need to have a point of view. You can't just throw 12 genre-disparate, completely unrelated songs an album and say you have eclectic influences any more than you can put cheeseburgers next to lo mein on a menu and call it fusion. That isn't how it works. And it makes me angry. So what it all boils down to is that I hate Fergie for the same reason that I hate the Cheesecake Factory. Rawr.

Oh, actually, I made a third revelation: not only do I look with the car, but sometimes I dance with the car. Kanye comes on, I start bopping, the car starts weaving, and people start passing me. Oops.

The real trouble came once I got to Somerville. City parking, as we all know, most often means parallel parking. I do not know how to parallel park. Let's elaborate: by 'do not know how,' I mean not 'am not good at,' as most who say that do, but 'my driving instructors refused to teach me because they (rightly) didn't think I could handle it and so I've spent the ensuing eight years avoiding it at any cost.' At 8:54pm, I pulled onto my street. I found what appeared to be a large spot. I pulled into it, and spent several minutes backing up and inching forward and putting the car in park so I could get out to inspect my proximity and angle to the curb and then doing it all over again, and again, and again. When I thought I had done a fair job, I hopped out...and immediately was perplexed by the two signs on the adjacent telephone pole. Sign A said Tow Zone: No Parking, with an arrow pointing to the street. Sign B said No Parking During Street Cleaning: 2nd and 4th Friday of the Month. How could those signs possibly exist on the same telephone pole? Each negates the other! Does one refer to the space in front, and one to the space behind? If so, how am I to know which is which? And which Friday of the month is it? And while we're on the subject of parking-related conundrums, exactly how close is too close to a fire hydrant? Three feet? Ten feet? So much uncertainty! I slumped, defeated.

I noticed another spot on the other side of the street, with only the street cleaning sign beside it and no proximate hydrant. I calculated that today was in fact the third Friday of the month and proceeded to move the car into the new space. And backed up, and inched forward, and put it in park, and got out to inspect how close I was to the curb. And again. And again. Finally, satisfied, I called my parents to find out where the park brake was located, engaged it, hid the navigation system under the seat so it wouldn't get stolen by hoodlums with or without freaky masks, exited the vehicle, and waited several seconds to be sure the headlights would indeed turn themselves off as advertised. By the time I got inside, it was 9:17. 23 minutes to park a damn car. That's got to be some kind of record.