Steer INTO the slide, INTO the slide!!

”Silly Dad, he still thinks he’s driving a manual,” I said to myself as I sat down in my sister’s automatic Civic. I was just leaving the auto-body shop. My father had driven me there, so he could pick up his newly-repaired car and drive home. When he exited the Civic, he had left the transmission in “drive” and pulled the emergency brake.

The afternoon was dark and rainy. Enjoying the tranquility of the shower, I drove down the wavy, two-laned road recalling memories of playing paintball in the neighboring fields with high school friends…SSSHHHHHHHH my wheels inexplicably locked and sent the car in to a skid.

I looked ahead and saw the oncoming traffic not twenty feet in front of me. “Damn! now IS NOT the time for a head-on collision!” I fought the car back into my lane only to have it gradually* slide off the narrow shoulder and half-way into the grass. A large trench was now only two feet to the right. I foresaw a future, “Hi dad, um…we need to go back to the body shop…I’m upside down in a ditch…No, I have no idea what happened. Um…I’m not sure. I took a wrong turn getting back to the house. I do know I’m in Virgina, that should narrow it down, right?” A mail box menacingly dashed towards me, “not good either…”

And the car stopped, scratch free, two wheels still on the road, and one old lady stopped behind me not sure what to make of the scene. I stuck my hand out the window and motioned her to pass. She slowly pulled forward, and asked me if I was ok. I smiled and chuckled as I told her I was fine.

I took a few seconds to fully regain my composure, took my foot of the break, and turned around to head home.

“Something’s not right.. What the heck just happened?” Then it hit me. I had taken my LEFT foot off the break and shifted the transmission OUT of "neutral" in order to get moving. Maybe the shear force of my will prevented me from disaster. Maybe God allowed me to cash in a few of the good deeds I’ve been saving for – a rainy day, ha ha ha. Maybe the stars favored my existence. Whatever the case, I am grateful to be able to come home in a fully functioning vehicle and the drive home was just like any other.

Yet again, history proves that I am indeed my father’s son.

*three seconds tops
**In case you want a better explanation—the car locked up because I instinctively tried to shift. My left foot punched the closest pedal (normally the clutch)– the break pedal. My right arm instinctively tried to down-shift into third gear (normally and upward motion) – "neutral" just above drive.