Driving: it's one of those things that most people seem to be able to do. So, having a total of three hours behind the wheel (in lessons), I spend half an hour convincing my extremely reluctant mother that I am good enough to go driving with her. In her car.
It started out well enough- I stalled about ten times, before even going anywhere. For some reason, no matter how much I pressed the accelerator, the car just wouldn't move- although it did make some very impressive sounds. After five minutes of me yelling at the car for it not doing what I wanted it to, my mother offered me some very helpful advice:
"You have the handbrake on."
As soon as I rectified the problem, of course, the car shot off. I noticed that my supervising driver was likely in the early stages of a heart attack, so I slowed down and the car crawled along at a snail's pace until the end of my street. Being able to drive all the way up my street sounds impressive, by my standards at least, but you have to consider that that entails only four houses.
Much to my despair, at the end of my street there is a roundabout. I began to turn the wheel, but realised that I was headed for the roundabout itself, so exclaimed, "help me!"
My mum then attempted to help me, but we both turned the wheel the same way at the same time. This cumulative effect ensued the car somehow ending up on the nature strip. Not even the entire car- just the passenger side wheels, leaving the car tilted at what seems to be a very harsh angle when one is in the car. My immediate reaction was to brake harshly and put on the hazard lights, not that that compelled any nearby cars or people to stop and help me.
You would think that it would be the job of the supervising driver to get the car safely down, but unfortunately, she couldn't. She speculated that she would probably be able to by driving it forwards, but there was a street tree in the way (luckily I had braked before hitting the tree in question).
On the upside, since I had not managed to get very far, I was able to go frantically ask my neighbour to help me. Also on the upside, he was wearing very little clothing when he opened the door. While he agreed to help me, unfortunately he insisted on getting dressed first. And he didn't seem too confident about driving a manual car, let alone one stuck on the nature strip, but insisted that it would be fine. It was only when he saw that I hadn't been exaggerating that he began to hesitate.
Luckily, one of the many cars that had swerved past my unintentional parking job decided to stop. The driver drove an automatic, but seemed more confident than my now fully-clothed neighbour. He got behind the wheel, and after some painful crunching sounds had emulated from the car, he removed the handbrake and managed to successfully manouvre the L-plate adorned vehicle from the nature strip. Five or so other cars didn't fit down the road in this time, so they all got to watch.
I don't think I'll be doing much driving anytime soon.
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