Recently my older sister has been teaching me to drive a stick shift car. In reality this is just a relearning for me. My dad tried a few times, but almost always as soon as I got behind the wheel there was a ton of traffic and sudden hills. So shifting became almost impossible. And then, as with most dads when their daughters are about to wreck their cars, my dad would yell out in frustration. This was not very conducive to learning. So my skills in this area are lacking. Needless to say, I feel incomplete. Without this vital skill I will never be able to compete on the AMAZING RACE or drive anywhere other than the US.
Solution: My older sister, who is much more patient, and a worse driver than me, will teach me. So the lessons begin. And I find that I'm not very bad at this shifting thing. Except for one major shift: from Neutral to First. You see, at neutral the car is not moving, just waiting (at stop lights and such). In order to shift in to first you must both push in the clutch and the gas at equal speeds, thus shifting and getting the car in motion at the same time. This is hard. I'm not very good at it. The car jerks and lurches and shakes and jumps and then finally we're in motion. Once I'm moving I have no problems shifting from gear to gear. Its that initial shift that kills me every time. Neutral is hard to get out of.
I'm in neutral right now. Which feels odd because for the past few months I've been flying down the freeway, shifting away as the need arose. Then came Spring Break, and I had to really slow down, even stop at a few red lights. Now I'm sitting here in neutral and not wanting to go through that who shaky process of getting moving again. I like neutral, or I like speeding away. Its the getting on the move that kills me.
