Through the Eyes of a Delivery Goddess |
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This will be a suppliment to a previous installment Life in Reverse. So, what do you want first, the negative story, or the positive story? Negative? Well, OK then ... here's one time I was thankful to be driving a front-wheel drive. I'm not sure how it is in other states, but it is illegal to back out of a driveway in the state of Pennsylvania. Oh, you didn't know that? Good thing nobody's hit you yet as you back out of your driveway, then! It would be YOUR fault, not the fault of the guy on the open road. So, the habit you must start building now, is backing INTO a driveway so that you are PULLING OUT into traffic. Keeping in line with that rule while delivering pizzas one afternoon, I surveyed the driveway as I rolled past it so that I knew exactly where I wanted to aim the back of the car. There was short grass growing across the driveway about a foot wide where the driveway met up with the paved road; the driveway itself was gravel and two cars wide.  I aimed for the side of the driveway that did not have a car parked down hear the garage using only my side mirrors; (I rarely use a rear-view mirror, which is good, since my current Corolla doesn't even have a rear-view mirror), and suddenly, I heard a sharp **THUMP** and my back right wheel sunk down into some kind of unknown, unforeseen void. With a front wheel drive car, I was able to pull myself up out of the hole - and if I had PULLED into the driveway, my drivewheels would be stuck, not my idle [rear] wheels, right? (Bet you will all think twice about PULLING INTO your driveway tomorrow.) I pulled back out onto the road, and got out of the car to get a closer look at the mouth of the driveway. Where the driveway meets the road, it is only one car-width wide, but opens up to be two car-widths wide. On both sides of the mouth of the driveway was a drainage ditch about two feet deep, and some prankster had cut the grass sticking out of the ditch to the same height as the grass growing on the ground that was at the same level as the driveway and road. In other words, it was all flat, and all looked like "yard", so I had no idea there was a deep ditch until I got out and looked down INTO the ditch. After taking a closer look, my aim was a bit more accurate, but it seems to me, either cutting the grass down into the ditch to show it's boundries, or sticking a couple of two-dollar reflectors on a post into the ground at the edges of the driveway should have been high on the priority list.The second story is short - while working at the junkyard, we were involved in the removal/recycle part of the "Cash for Clunkers" program for a local car dealership. On a couple of occasions, I used my car as the shuttle car, dropping off a couple of the guys at the dealership so they could drive clunkers to our facility to be incapacitated, parted out and eventually ... crushed or shredded. We stopped at a neighbor's house to pick him up, after he expressed interest in driving clunkers rather than watching another re-run of Car 54, Where Are You? (Ok, I'm not certain what sort of excitment he might have had planned for an hour or so, but he DID volunteer to help out), so we stopped at his house to pick him up, but he didn't answer the door. I ignored the "back in, pull out" rule this time since parts of the driveway were hidden where it snaked around the barn and the house, which gave me the opportunity to plan a reverse attack for the return trip out. It was probably not funny to anyone else in the car, but I chose a relatively unsafe speed for the reverse trip, and as I mentioned, only used the side mirrors which means I never turned around to see what was behind me. For some reason, most people are uncomfortable if you face forward in the driver's seat, while actually travelling in reverse. There were a few nervous comments as we backed out on the road, to which I replied, "Yes, Boys, I am a Woman Driver." We continued silently down the road to the dealership. This actually brings to mind o n e m o r e reverse story. I was driving my parent's Bronco with my highschool boyfriend in the passenger seat and the tires for his truck stacked in the back. His house had two driveways, and upper driveway and lower driveway. As I passed the upper driveway, he quickly said his tire-less truck was in the upper driveway, so I glanced in the mirrors and hit the brakes. I am only five feet tall. I turned around to look out the back window, but all I could see was tires. When I looked in the rear-view mirror (I was a relatively new driver, still using the rear-view attached the windshield) and because of the angle of view, I could see the entire perimeter of the back window. I could not see anything behind me. I again checked both side mirrors and began to back up. The CLUNK I heard was translated by my brain as the transmission failing, so I pushed the gas harder (don't ask me why). A horn blew. I drifted forward to see a very small coupe emerge in the side mirrors as I got further away. I parked in the lower driveway, we exchanged insurance info. My boyfriend's mom had been sitting on the porch swing and watched the whole thing. She said the little coupe came literally flying over the hill and slammed on her brakes since I was stopped in the middle of a main highway. Her front bumper was nearly directly underneath mine, which explains why I could not see her in any of my mirrors. The transmission clunk I heard was my back bumper driving over her hood. When I called the insurance company and he asked which direction I was travelling on route 66, I said, "Well, I was pointed north, but travelling south... which answer do you want?" ..... Silence at the other end. That's right Boys, I AM a WOMAN-DRIVER! |