Laura was the main character in my crazy dream...

The comedian Daniel Tosh said in his stand up CD "True Stories I Made", which by the way is highly recommended by me if you are not easily offended and can stand jokes that go on a stream of consciousness where you're not sure how you got to his end point.

Wait... I forgot to mention what he said. He said something like on whether or not it's possible to describe a dream without sounding mentally challenged.

I had one about Laura the other night that was so vivid that I actually remembered most of it. Usually, a lot of my dreams involve crazy action that never resolves itself. They seem so real and disturbing, but when I wake up, I realize that I can't remember what was so disturbing in the first place.

My dreams usually run through several incarnations.

- The 'tornado' dream - This type of dream happens a few times a month. In this dream, I or my family and I are stuck out in the middle of nowhere while tornadoes on every side of us/me are closing in. I/we take shelter, but usually in some place inappropriate like a basement with nothing but windows. The dream never resolves itself and I usually wake up anxious to get out of weather that isn't there. This particular dream started when I was a kid when my family and I would stay every summer weekend in a small trailer that was centered perfectly on both sides between the Platte river and the small lake in front of us. There was no tornado shelter, so if the weather hit the fan, there was no place to go. My dreams then usually ended with our dinky trailer getting picked up and chucked in either the river or the lake.

- The 'new location' dream - In this dream, I am in a mystery city living in a mystery house. In this dream, I'm usually by myself without my immediate family, although some people I know inhabit the dream.

- The 'I'm Rich!' dream - In this dream, I hit the jackpot! This is always followed by the crushing realization that I am not rich when I wake up. That sucks.

- The 'I'm getting fired!' dream - In this dream, I do something really stupid like steal from my employer, surf porn at work, or piss everyone off.

- The 'I'm naked' dream - Good God is this one frequent. It's not that I'm totally naked, just usually naked from the waist down. It's either at school or at work.

- The 'what the frak?' dream - A dream that defies all description and logic.

This dream I had the other night seemed like a 'what the frak?' dream, but it actually made a little sense.

So here's what happened. My wife, Laura, was planning a heist on a department store. For some reason, she chose to rob the Scheels sporting goods store. I'm not sure why she chose this, but it seemed to make sense to her. My brother, Bill, was also in on the heist.

Each day, we'd drive down to Scheels to stake it out. On the way, we'd pass a stretch of road where we'd see a cougar just walking along the road. Each time we saw the cougar, Laura would have me take the wheel and she'd get out her rifle (which she doesn't own, by the way) and start shooting rounds at the cougar. Each time, the cougar would scatter and so would all the people in the neighborhood.

I'd chastise Laura for this reckless behavior because 1. I'm pretty sure shooting a rifle in a crowded neighborhood is against the law and 2. it's not exactly being on the down low for staking out a robbery target if you're firing rifle shots on the way there.

Because of the constant firing of Laura's rifle, Bill and I decided that we needed to go in disguise. So of course, we decided that we would dress up as Jedis from Star Wars. I was dressed up as the Liam Neeson character from the God-awful Phantom Menace film.

One day, Laura hit the jackpot while on the way to our stake out. She saw the cougar again and decided to act. She pulled out the rifle and fired at the cougar, which was just about to pounce on a man and his child. The cougar dropped dead and the man thanked Laura profusely.

Because I had been worried about being caught, Laura had to rub it in.

"See?" she sneered. "I didn't get caught. The guy even thanked me for shooting it!"

It was right about this point in the dream where I decided that I couldn't go through with the heist. For one thing, I was worried about getting caught. If both of us went on this heist and we both got caught, who would watch Julia? Besides, why Scheels? Did they have a massive amount of cash on hand?

Laura was sure of the target because they didn't have security guards. I was thinking more of the security cameras and silent alarms.

I backed out. I told Laura that I couldn't do it.

She asked me, "What are you, a pussy?!"

That's about when I woke up.

Laura loved the dream by the way.

Laura almost runs a red light and then blames me for it...

I've written a few times about Laura and I driving together. To sum up those past stories, Laura fears that I drive like a grandma, and I fear for my life when I see every car around us slowing down while our car seems to be going faster. To say that Laura is an aggressive driver is doing her a disservice. She brags that she got trained on the road warrior-like freeways of California, and that's how she's going to drive from now on.

I ask her sometimes, "What do your co-workers think of your driving?"

She's admitted that the responses have ranged from a ride in a runaway taxi (not surprising) to a ride in a race car (not surprising either).

Usually, I drive us to work when we carpool, but I talked her into driving the other day. We took her car, the Mazda 3, which Laura refers to as 'awesome' and much better than my 'no balls' having Santa Fe. She got a car that does what she wants. It takes off on a flash and gives her the ability to zip in and out of traffic. When she drives, I've taken to just reading magazines because if I was to watch what was going on the road, I'd have a heart attack. We've gotten into a few heated discussions when I've criticized her tailgating and delayed braking times after I've almost shoved my feet through the floor boards as I'm trying to will her to stop the car in time.

So the other day Laura drove us to work. Julia was with us because she was going to the summer day camp that my employer runs. I picked up Laura, with Julia in tow, at work and we switched drivers. She pulled away, turned left and headed the three blocks that leads to the interstate exit. We started talking. She was telling me something about work when I noticed that the light ahead was red. I anticipated her slowing down, but noticed that she was not slowing down. Laura kept talking.

I go, "Ummm...."

Still no stopping...

"Uh! Stop!" I yelled at the last minute.

"Oh!" Laura exclaimed and hit the brakes. We skidded to a stop just outside of the crosswalk.

"I didn't think you were going to stop," I said.

Flustered, Laura said, "Well... you were distracting me by talking!"

"Yeah, thanks a lot, Daddy!" Julia quipped from the back seat.

"How is this my fault?" I asked.

"It is because you and Julia were yapping in my ear when you should let me just drive."

We got on the interstate, and I started making a few suggestions about Laura's proximity to cars ahead of us. Laura sighed.

I should point out now that Laura is notorious for pointing out at great length how much distance I need between me and the car in front of me, how fast I should accelerate, which lane to take at any moment, which cars to pass and which way to go. If I deviate from that or don't anticipate what Laura would do, I get the inevitable questions of why I'm not doing all the things Laura would do. I often tell her that I'm going to get a bracelet that says WWLD, which means 'What Would Laura Do?"

We got further along in our trip home and I suggested that she switch lanes. Apparently, that was more than enough for Laura. She whipped around towards me and said, "If you say one more thing about my driving, just one more thing, I am going to stop this car and let you out. Then you can walk home. Don't believe me? Just try me."

I smirked and started to open my mouth.

"Feeling lucky?" Laura asked. "Go ahead and try it."

I smiled and closed my mouth.

"That's what I thought," Laura said.

I pulled out my magazine and spent the rest of the journey home trying not to look up when I saw the inevitable rush of a car's rear end coming towards me.

Later that night, we were getting ready for bed and watching a show about surviving car crashes, which of course featured lots of clips of cars crashing. One of the crashes involved a guy running from the police in a pickup truck. The chase ended when he ran a red light, and the truck he was driving collided with another car.

I said without looking at Laura, "Hmmm... I think that guy must have had his passenger and someone in the back talking to him for him to be distracted like that."

I could feel Laura's eyes bore on me as I heard her let out a long angry sigh. I closed my eyes and started giggling hard for about 10 seconds and said, "I'm sorry! I just had to say it."

"Uh huh! You're really enjoying yourself over there! You must REALLY want to sleep somewhere else tonight," she said.

I get dragged to see the Nutcracker ballet...

Two Saturdays ago, I was dragged... check that... was escorting my wife and Julia to the Nutcracker ballet performance at the Orpheum. It was supposed to be a daughter-mother-grandmother show, but Grandma couldn't make it to Omaha. Her excuse was something about an ice storm that supposedly caused Interstate 80 to be closed down for a while. I guess some people just can't handle driving on black ice...

Obviously, I'm kidding. I was, however, looking forward to my several hours of solitude at home while the ladies went to the ballet. When I was informed by my wife that her Mom couldn't make it, I assumed that the show would go on without her and not include me.

"So I'm assuming that you're still going to the show, right?" I asked.

"Well, yeah." Laura said. "I already paid for the tickets."

"So who's going with you instead of your Mom?"

"You are!" Laura exclaimed.

"Oh, I'M going?" I asked.

"Yes, you are." Laura said matter-of-factly.

"I guess I assumed that you were going to go without me."

"Why would you assume that?" Laura asked.

"Because it's the ballet," I said.

"So?" Laura asked. "You'd think that a liberal like yourself would appreciate the ballet."

Laura always contends that I'm a liberal. I contend that I'm a moderate with liberal leanings. I also contend that Laura only thinks that I'm liberal because we don't always see eye to eye on certain topics, like health care. I'm in favor of universal health care. Laura, on the other hand, seems to hold that conservative line that those people can just go screw themselves if they're stupid enough to not have health insurance. Besides, they should be pulling themselves up by the bootstraps and getting a better job. At least, I think that's the way the conservative line goes.

“I'm a moderate and not a woman,” I said.

I had only seen an actual ballet only one other time, and I knew a little of what to expect. When I was in college, I worked for the catering department of the university. We would cover the intermissions for the performances at the Lied Center. During the Acts, we would either sit around and talking while we waited for intermission, or we could go into a private room and watch the performances behind a glass.

One such performance was for a ballet. I had never seen one before, so I sat down to watch. It was a Western ballet. The dancers were dressed as cowboys, farmers, farmer's wives, fair maidens or ranch hands. I watched with initial interest and then confusion as I couldn't figure out what was going on. There was a lot of prancing and gesturing, but I couldn't figure out the storyline. Someone would attack. Someone would cower. There seemed to be something about a bad guy coming into town.

I muttered, “I have no idea what's going on.”

One of my co-workers, a dance major, informed me of the plot. Something about the loss of innocence, something about passion and something about heroism, among other themes. One little gesture meant something completely different at any time. Maybe I'm not made for this because I was not getting it.

In the end, I had to go see the Nutcracker.

I had never seen the Nutcracker. I do know some of the songs, though. For example, when I was in grade school. One year for the Christmas pageant, we all had paper flowers around our necks and sang a song called, “Song of the Flowers.” Of course, this was actually the instrumental from the Nutcracker called “The Waltz of the Flowers.” It's very recognizable to me because it was featured in the movie “Caddyshack” during the swimming pool scene shortly before someone mistakes a Baby Ruth candy bar for a piece of poop.

Saturday came and as we went through entrance, the lady that took our tickets looked at me and the frowning expression that was on my face and commented, “Well you look like you're thrilled to be here.”

She laughed and I laughed.

Before we entered the auditorium, we showed our tickets to the lady at the door. She pointed out where the seats were. As we walked by her, I asked her a question.

“How long is this the show?” I asked, trying not to give off a hint that I was asking so I would know how bored I was going to be. It's not just the ballet. I have a hard time staying attentive for anything for very long. Years ago when I was a student, I went to see Les Miserables, and while I liked it, the last hour of the bloated musical was very hard for me to sit still for. Even Spamalot, as much as I liked it, had me looking at my watch during the last 30 minutes.

“90 minutes for Act 1, a 20-minute intermission and 90 minutes for Act 2,” the lady replied.

I thanked her for her time and mentally noted that it wasn't as long as I thought, so I had a chance to get through without squirming. As it turned out, I had a hard time staying awake during Act 1. I had taken a muscle relaxer prior to leaving for the show, and it was starting to kick in. Several times I caught myself nodding off near the end of Act 1. Laura said after the fact that she had heard me snorting a couple of times. She looked over at me to see my eyes half-closed and my head nodding up.

We found our seats in the sixth row. I opened the program and read the synopsis for the Nutcracker. If you've never seen it, the story goes that a big Christmas party is being prepared. The guests arrive and watch some entertainment from dancers. Then presents are given out. The main character, Clara, is given a nutcracker toy. Later that night, she sneaks downstairs to check on her nutcracker. Getting spooked by the dark, she grabs the Nutcracker and falls asleep with him. Then something about a mouse king that for some reason invades the house. The Nutcracker comes to life and leads a small army to fight the mouse king and his mouse soldiers. Just when it looks like the Nutcracker is going to lose, Clara hits the mouse king when her slipper.

Then it gets even weirder as Clara is taken to the Sugar Plum Fairy, who hears how she saved the Nutcracker prince. She is rewarded with a dance celebration. After a series of dance segments, she is taken back home. She wakes up with the Nutcracker back to toy form in her arms.

Ballet isn't my cup of tea but I was mildly impressed by the first act, the Party Scene. The plot was easy to follow, the dances were neat and the scenery was impressive. For me, it started to go downhill when the party ended and the dream sequence started. Some of the performances were interesting, but it seemed like variations of the same thing. Seeing how there is no dialog, but just a lot of facial expressions and lots of gesturing, I was quickly bored.

As much as I was bored, there were several things that distracted me about the second half of the show.

For one, Clara is given a bench to sit on near the back of the stage to take in the show that's being presented for her. Because she is sitting back there for the most part of the second act, all she has to do is to smile, nod, clap after each dance and then smile some more. I was constantly looking back at her to see if she would lapse into a yawn. She didn't, but that didn't stop me for constantly checking to see if she would break character.

Another thing were the men. I was trying to decide which guys were on my team and which guys played for the other team. I thought I had one pegged, the one playing the Nutcracker Prince, but Laura informed me that the guy was married to the lady playing the Sugar Plum Fairy.

I was also distracted by the outfits the guys wore. More specifically, the area below the belt that seemed to show every detail. Now I like seeing a guy's package as much as the next guy, which is very little, but I think if I was ever a ballet dancer that I'd either show some modesty and cover that area a little or stuff it with a sock to enhance that feature. Even Laura admitted that she was distracted by it. I was reminded of the ballet scene in the spy movie parody called “Top Secret” in which Val Kilmer is watching a performance and all of the male dancers have gigantic packages. They are so big that the female dancers can walk across them.

On a tangent, I've noticed that high school wrestling suffers from nearly the same problem. I've seen a few matches and it's pretty obvious that many guys go commando, if you catch my drift. For me, it's hard to take a supposed masculine sport seriously when it involves two guys going commando that take turns hugging and straddling each other. Maybe I notice because I've almost never met a person that wrestles that wasn't a total asshole so I'm looking for excuses to hate them. I've had a few issues with them in the past, but that's another story. But I digress...

I ended up concentrating on the technique of the dancers. For the most part, the dancers were fine, but a few times, I noticed a couple of the men's arms shaking as they were holding and spinning their partner. I also noticed a few flaws in the costuming. One dancer had a small hole in her black leggings, which I noticed every time she appeared on stage.

All in all it was a decent performance, but not my cup of tea.

More joys of commuting with your spouse...

Driving Adventures Part 2

I mentioned in a previous entry the highs and lows of commuting with my wife, Laura.

One of our favorite shows is one called 'The Amazing Race', which pits teams of 2 against each other in a race around the world. It involves a lot of transportation with cab rides, train rides, plane rides and a lot of personal driving in which one member navigates while the other drives. I often joke with Laura that if we were ever on that show we'd be yelling at each other constantly.

This is often true of us when we have to leave town. Invariably, Laura gets stressed out when we don't leave the house at a certain time. I think she has a problem with my packing at the last possible minute and then throwing everything that I think I might need. This usually means I bring a lot more than I would ever need, but at least I've covered my bases. One of my biggest fears is that I will be driving out of town and a sudden pang will hit me that I've forgotten something important.

Because of this, when we have to leave the house, I usually have to make a few trips inside before we leave. I'll get in the car and then suddenly realize that I don't have my keys, so I run back inside to get them. I'll get back in the car, put the key in the ignition, but then I'll have to run inside because I've forgotten my sunglasses. So I run inside to get them. We're about to leave again. I've started the car and am about to back out, when I realize that I've forgotten my cell phone, so I run back inside to get it. This either ends there or I'll remember that I need to blow out candles, turn off lights, get a drink, go to the bathroom, lock the doors, grab a book I want to read, grab some CDs, grab my music player and other assorted trips inside for something. For some reason... Laura gets annoyed by this. I have no idea why...

So when we're off to work or driving home together, Laura has a few pet peeves in relation to my driving. She suggested a lot of these, so she had some input into this story. Lest you think I am complaining out of spite, my view is that if you can't laugh at these things, then you're on the verge of splitting up with your significant other.

Laura insists that if I am driving and there is a big gap between me and the car in front of me, that I need to close that gap. She'll start to intone, "Why aren't you going faster?", "Can't you go any faster?", "Why are you driving so slow?", "Why are you in this lane?", "Why are people passing us?" or "Jesus, you drive like a grandma!".

In my defense, if the traffic isn't that busy, I'll be sure to close that gap because I can get around the cars. However, if the traffic is wall to wall and the cars in front of me are both neck in neck with no hope of moving to allow more cars to pass, I find it idiotic to accelerate only 50 feet to the car in front of me, only to slow down to the same speed.

I joke that if we ever get into an accident that involves me hitting a car from behind because of her urging to 'get on his ass', that I'm going to blame the whole thing on her.

"Officer, I was obeying the speed limit, but my wife kept yelling at me to go faster and to 'get on' the car in front of me's 'ass'." That's me doing air quotes by the way.

The officer will probably shrug and mutter something like, "Hey buddy, I hear you..."

The ordering of directions doesn't end with on the road danger. If we're in a parking lot, Laura will bark out parking directions, even if it's obvious as hell which spot to take. I'll be driving up a row of cars and spot an empty spot. Laura will yell, "Ooh! There's a spot right there. Right there! (points)."

"Thanks," I'll say. "I couldn't have spotted that on my own."

"No problem," Laura will smugly say.

As if this wasn't bad enough, Julia has gotten into that habit, too. I'll be driving through a parking lot without Laura and Julia will exclaim, "Oooh! Daddy! Right there's a spot!"

So while I'm getting plenty of direction on the road, I am getting no help trying to decide what to eat.

I'll be driving home by myself on a Friday (Laura has that day off) and I'll call her up to see what she wants to eat. The segue here is a little awkward I'll admit, but it does tie into driving as you can see.

Usually, she wants to eat pizza. On a side note, I've never seen a person enjoy pizza more. If she could have her way, she'd eat it 3 or 4 times a week. It's as if she has a pizza maker's blood running through her blood, except she only got the part where the pizza maker just eats them.

Unfortunately for me (and her), I worked at Pizza Hut for about 10 years. During that time, I had every type of pizza imaginable and tasted every ingredient we ever had, which includes anchovies. I worked there part time to supplement my income five days a week. To save money, I would take home a personal pan pizza almost every single day that I worked there. As a result, I've not only had about every combination of pizza that you could imagine, but I've become so unbelievable sick of pizza that I could just about throw up.

Yet on almost every Friday, Laura will want pizza. So then I'll ask, "What do you want?"

She'll answer, "I don't care. Whatever you want."

Then I'll say, "No, it's not what I want. It's what you want."

She'll retort, "You know what I like. Whatever's fine."

To which I'll start to get a little testy, "Just pick something. I don't know what you want."

She'll start to get testy with, "What do you want on the pizza? Just pick something!"

I'll come back with, "You're asking the wrong person! That'd be like me wanting some Chinese food, but then asking you to pick it out for me when I know that you don't like it that much."

"Fine," she'll sigh, "Give me a ham and pineapple."

"Now was that so hard?" I'll ask.

If only Laura would concentrate on what we're going to eat instead of the driving, then maybe I wouldn't be so stressed when I drive home on Fridays.

But I think I realized why Laura and I clash when we drive together. It came to me when we were driving through our neighborhood to pick up Julia after work. Laura turned to me and said, "Jesus, you drive like the slowest f*#$ing grandma driver I've ever seen."

Of course, I pointed out that I was driving through an area heavily populated with kids. I sped up a little and then made noises and gestures as if kids were getting bounced off my car as it plowed through the neighborhood. She laughed.

We clash because when I get up in the morning, I'm pretty wide awake. I'm not one of those people that take two full hours to wake up, like Laura. As a result of this, our morning drives are pretty uneventful. Laura is too busy waking up to notice how I'm driving. But when I pick her up at work in the late afternoon, I'm running on a half-full tank, while Laura seems to be running at full speed. I'm the one that's zoning out while she's the one thinking of the best and fastest way to get home.

Once this past week, we took Laura's new car. She decided to drive on the way there and the way back. Now I think that I've mentioned that having Laura drive is analogous to riding a roller coaster. You're pretty sure you're going to die, but you hope to God that you don't. I said in a previous story that she tails people like she's trying to dry hump the back end of their car. Last week did not disappoint. There were several times when the cars would break and I could have sworn that we were going to hit the car in front of us. I winced and grabbed the little hang down arm on the ceiling. Once or twice, I signed the sign of the cross just to be safe. After a while, I just stared at the ground or out the side. It wasn't as scary that way.

I'm all for her driving. I just need to bring something to distract me from the excitement in front of me.

I get Laura's car dirty...

Yesterday, I committed a cardinal sin against my wife, Laura.

There are a few sins that a man must never try to do. That list includes: never comment about her weight, never oggle another woman in her presence, never declare your admiration for a hot actress in a movie, never wake her up with your snoring, never leave the seat up, never scratch her car, and there are many others.

I can add a new one to my never list: never get your wife’s car dirty with her in the car. This is not as severe as the 'never scratch your wife's car with a key while she's watching, which I've done, but it's still high up there.

I mentioned that Laura got a newer used car, a Mazda 3, which also has a stick shift. Because of her lack of prowess with the stick shift, she has been having me drive on the days that we commute together. This has led to some interesting car rides to say the least. Now Laura can barely shift without lurching the car, but when I drive, she seems to expect total control of the stick shift on my part. I lurch the car just a tad and she’s exclaiming “Jeez!” or “Easy!”.

Also, when I’m driving her car, which I do when we commute together two or three times a week, she’s the world’s worst back-seat driver, except she’s in the passenger seat.

I’ll be cruising along at a comfortable speed and invariably, I’ll hear things like, “Why are you going so slow?”, “Why are people passing you?” or “Shouldn’t you be driving faster?”

If I’m in a lane that looks a slightly more congested than the one next to us, she’ll recommend, “Get in the other lane.” or “Why are you in the slow lane?”

There has yet to be a car ride yet with both of us in her car where she doesn’t critique some aspect of my driving skills.

The other day, I was driving her car when she mentioned something about my driving. We were almost home and I swear I had heard at least a dozen suggestions on how to drive better, which is pretty ironic coming from someone that drives like they want to dry hump the car in front of them. Having Laura drive is akin to being in a roller coaster. You know the ride will end soon and you pray to God that you get there in one piece. I find it’s just better if I not look up when she drives because it’s only bound to scare the living shit out of me when a line a cars start to slow down and Laura doesn’t slow down until the last second. I make frantic stomps with my foot to signal a stop. Finally she does and she looks over at me and asks, “What?”

But anyway, I was driving the other day with this model citizen of driving (just kidding honey) when I got another tip on driving. I turned to her and said in an exhausted tone, “Will you shut the f*&k up?!” My meaning was to get her to stop with the suggestions and for her to laugh. Amazingly, I nailed the right tone and she did laugh.

So yesterday morning, I’m driving again and I stop at the local gas station to get a roll of Little Debbie donuts as I had forgotten in my haste to get Julia out the door, to eat breakfast. I run in, grab the donuts and get back in the car. I pull around the back of the gas station to a side rode, which happens to have some construction. Unbeknown to me, I am heading for a rather large dirty water puddle (it had been raining all night so everything was wet). I didn’t see it because I was in the process of shifting and opening my pack of donuts at the same time, which is possible but distracting.

Laura exclaimed, “Watch it!”

We hit the puddle at a slow speed, but it was enough to send a cascade of dirty water over the entire car. She still has a nice wax job on the Mazda, so it rolled off quickly down the entire wind shield and passenger window. It rolled off the car, but many small beads of brown water clung to every part of the car.

Laura said something like, “Ungh… Ungh… You idiot!”

I laugh and exclaim, “Sorry!”

She glared at me, “Look at my car! Does it look like I’m laughing?”

I suppress a smile and say nothing. She exclaimed, “What did you think was going to happen when you hit a dirty puddle, sunshine and roses to fall on my car?”

“No,” I retort with a smile.

“It’s not funny,” Laura said defiantly. “And you know what? You are going to take my car to the car wash and get it cleaned today. And it’s coming out of your pocket!”

I laugh a little and we continue. The entire trip to work, she periodically pointed to various dirty spots on the outside and muttered, “Look at that.!” I nodded. Later, I did get her car washed. I’m not that much of an idiot to leave her car dirty when I picked her up that afternoon.

Laura drives a stick shift... sort of...

We recently got a used car for Laura. It was decided that we could no longer put off getting a different car for her. I guess the fact that it leaked oil like a stuck pig, has had no air conditioning for the last two years, shuddered at stop lights, shaked a little when accelerating and had over 240,000 miles on it had something to do with it losing it's appeal in Laura's eyes. I guess she didn't like the drenching car rides home in 100 degree weather. I tried to tell her that sweating is a cleansing process and to enjoy it, but she didn't buy it.

Laura spotted her dream car one day when we dropped her old car off to get a seal fixed in the engine block. We had to rent a car and the car they gave us was a Mazda 3. Laura fell in love with it. The fact that it seemed to be able to go from 0 to 60 in way under 10 seconds might have had something to do with it. Laura tends to be a speed demon and is constantly urging me to speed or questioning why I'm not speeding.

We looked at used Mazda 3s, but were disappointed to see that most were out of our price range that we felt comfortable paying. I suggested that she look at getting one with a manual transmission, which seemed to knock 1500 dollars off the blue book value.

Laura agreed that this was an option, but the only problem was that Laura couldn't drive a stick shift.

I had learned how to drive one when I was working bridge construction and had to drive the huge dump truck. The two cars after that had a manual transmission, so I have plenty of experience driving one. I had tried to teach Laura on two occasions when I coincidentally had a manual transmission car when we were dating. Those occasions were a disaster as Laura couldn't seem to get the car out of first gear.

I would smoothly say, "Eaaase out the clutch."

She would pull the clutch off very suddenly while punching the gas. The car lurched and lurched.

After many instances of this, I was no longer smoothly saying anything. Instead, I was screaming, "Stop! Stop! Stop!" as the car lurched and buckled forward. I was envisioning permanent transmission damage.

So it was with a big of apprehension when Laura decided that she was going to compromise and get the stick shift Mazda 3 that we had seen at a local car dealership.

Agreed, not everyone needs to know how to drive a manual transmission before buying one, although it helps.

I always think of the show The Amazing Race when I think of manual transmissions. The show has been on the air for years now, so you would assume that every contestant has seen the show by now. Every season, the contestants will get to a country and have to grab a car to drive that has a manual transmission. Most teams jump in and drive off. There is at least one team that will get in the car and go, "It's a stick! I don't know how to drive a stick!"

Now if you've ever seen the show, they always go to at least country where the dominant transmission is a manual one. Why on Earth would you not practice before you start filming the show? But I digress...

Laura has been out practicing on her own and is getting pretty decent at shifting. At first, she was cheating in that she'd come up to a Stop sign and then come to rolling stop and then go again, which totally defeats the purpose. I ordered her to come to a complete stop in preparation of the first time that she had to stop at a stop light.

We have been commuting together three days a week to save on gas and so far, it's been me that's driven her car to work. There are three reasons for this. One, she isn't confident enough to drive herself. Two, she claims that I tend to yell at her when she's suddenly forgetting how to shift into first gear, which is more or less true, but I disagree on the tone and severity of the yelling. Three, she likes to be dropped off at her building by the front door as it saves her the extra time that she'd normally be parking and walking back to the building.

She has taken the car to work by herself, but she's still nervous. Whenever Laura kills it at a stoplight, she seems to take a step back in progress. Then, she's more tentative, which makes it worse.