Confession: I can’t drive. Unlike a select few who take pride in saying they don’t know how to cook – a roundabout way of saying they grew up with servants, which means they’re rich and cooking is menial and for peasants – I take no pride in saying I can’t drive. It would sound so glamorous if the reason I can’t is because I have a chauffeur, but that must’ve been my former life in an alternate universe. Also, people who’re proud of not knowing how to cook run the risk of going hungry and/or eating uncooked noodles out of a packet. I feel nothing but sadness for them, much the same way you feel nothing but sadness for me, the non-driver in her mid-thirties who still takes the bus like Miss Rosa Parks.
I can’t drive because I don’t know how. I’ve never really needed to learn. Everywhere I’ve lived has always had easy access to public transportation and there’ve always been people to drive me around for little to no charge, be it my parents, my in-laws, Le Hubs, a friend, the subway conductor and Manong Bus Driver. But six winters have convinced me that I am a grown-up now, and I need to learn how to drive because my driving record is non-existent, unless you count trying to mow down chickens with a Honda 50.
Learning to drive is important. One can’t take public transit forever, and relying on other people’s kindness has a limit. Like swimming, driving is a survival skill. I blame my high school curriculum for this. They taught us how to bind books, cook, bake, sew, garden, and swim, but they never taught us how to drive. What if you get kidnapped and find yourself somewhere in the Mojave desert where your only recourse is to hijack a truck and ride out at top speed like a bat out of hell? The reception could be sketchy and who has time to call an Uber when one is too busy trying to live? Or what if the future is a George Miller fever dream, where we are all Mad Max in an post-apocalyptic wasteland where everyone fights for water and guzzoline while Tina Turner sings the theme song and the only way to get around is by driving stick in a jacked-up supercar? This is a serious hole in the high-school curriculum that needs to be addressed. I firmly believe the upbringing of a fine, well-rounded, upstanding citizen of tomorrow should include learning to drive stick.
In my defense, I’m short. I don’t quite like the idea of having to sit on a giant Webster’s dictionary just so I can see above the dashboard. That, or wear shoes the size of cement blocks just so my feet can reach the pedals. If my husband’s grandmother (who is around seventy) can still drive herself four hours up north to cottage country every summer, what possible excuse can I give myself? Nothing. It’s probably a little too early to start the New Year’s Resolution list, but I’m not waiting for the last day of the year. So here is my resolution: I shall get a license, and learn how to drive. And then when I have passed the test, I will finally be ready to re-enact my Grand Theft Auto fantasies in real life, so be afraid, unsuspecting pedestrians. Be very afraid.
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Author’s Twitter: @nikkajow