dc driving

I don't often drive in DC because...well, mainly because I don't have a car (which is a good reason). I do miss having a car, except when I get the opportunity to do a little driving inside the District. Like yesterday, for example.

Yesterday I took my colleague's car to pick up a catering order for a big office meeting. Driving her car freaked me out already, without the driver's around. Each time I came to a stop light my heartbeat picked up ever so slightly because there was no clutch and yes, I admit it, I was tempted to do some phantom shifting. I refrained (except once), but there was no way to put the car in neutral and I kept waiting for it to buck and stall. Seeing as how she has an automatic, it didn't. But in the almost 9 years of driving, over 8 have been in a standard.

To think I used to make fun of people who phantom shifted.

As if that wasn't enough, there were the other drivers. Getting to the store wasn't too bad, there weren't to many idiots on the road. But getting back was a different story. I had some guy open his car door almost right into my car, and I just barely had enough room to swerve without hitting oncoming traffic in the next lane. And then, driving back to work at one intersection there was the classic car in the middle of the intersection trying to turn, but oh, guess what? I had a green light and she had a red! I wanted to honk at her, because I'd actually already almost been hit twice...but seeing as how I was in a new car, trying to remember not to shift, I had absolutely no idea where the horn was. It was in a different place than in my old car. I think on the bottom of the steering wheel, not on the side.

And then in the next block, there was a truck stopped in my lane, and I couldn't very well go around it because there were cars coming against me in the very next lane. Fortunately only two, so I didn't have to wait long. But long enough to have some guy two cars back honk. Geez...it's not like I felt like stopping in the middle of the lane for the fun of it. I couldn't go anywhere!

And then I think I almost got hit again before making it back into my building's parking garage. You know..they say LA has the worst traffic, but in four years of driving in Southern California and LA...I never had the problems I've had in the few times I've driven in DC in only two years.

My colleagues were waiting for me in the garage to help take all the food back upstairs and when I first joked with them about the weirdness of driving an automatic again, I told them my realization: No wonder people here are often in such foul moods. I'd be too if I had deal with that every day.

So that's my rant. And that took care of that emptiness of not driving somewhere inside me. And besides, in a month I'm going back to Texas for the holiday and I'll get to drive in nice, four lane roads where most people observe traffic signals, use turn signals and wave when you let them in (how nice is that?) and...what's even better, is I'll get to drive a standard which will relieve that tension.

Oh, and I know where the horn is on my Mom's car.

By the way, I know I owe a recap on the Turkish festival. It was an incredibly crazy week at work this past week with lots of long hours, but this weekend I've got some downtime and intend to take those pictures off my camera and I'll post about the delicious Turkish coffee.