Once more, from the top, the Friday Five:
1. Do you have a car? If so, what kind of car is it? I own a ’02 Honda Civic Ex. It’s blue.
2. Do you drive very often? I drive every day, mostly to and from work. Sometimes, in the summer, in the evenings, I feel a little guilty about it. It’s not great for the environment, and I’m not getting enough exercise. But since I moved, walking home isn’t really an option anymore, and the bus adds at least half an hour and a fifteen-minute walk to my commute.
When I was younger, the idea of learning to drive terrified me for some reason. Maybe the idea of trying to control something as big as a car seemed impossible to me, I don’t know. I put off getting my learner’s permit as long as I could. I was happy to take a week off from driving lessons to go to summer camp. I just didn’t want to drive. Now that I know how, I love to drive. I absolutely love it. I try to remember that whenever something new — like some untried experience that terrifies me — comes my way. I was wrong about driving, maybe I’m wrong about this. It doesn’t always work (as anyone who really knows me could probably attest), but I try.
3. What’s your dream car? I have no dream car. I like the one I’m driving. It looks nice, it’s comfortable, and so far it’s been reliable. That’s enough for me.
4. Have you ever received a ticket? Parking tickets only, although I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been known to speed on occasion. Both times I was ticketed, it was because the meter next to which I was parked had expired. The first time, the minutes left on the meter didn’t change when I stuffed it with my last handful of dimes, and since I was in a hurry, had no more money, and it was after five, I thought I’d take the risk and leave my car there. That’s probably when the University police pounced on it. The second ticket I received downtown. Attack of the Clones was longer than I had expected it to be.
It also wasn’t half as good as it should have been, but that’s another story altogether.
5. Have you ever been in an accident? Yes. I was in junior high, and my father had picked me up from school one Friday afternoon, since we were going on a canoe trip with the Boy Scouts maybe an hour from then. A car at a cross-street in front of us didn’t stop at the stop sign, and we crashed into it at maybe twenty-five or thirty miles an hour. I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt, and while I didn’t go through the windshield, I did crack it with the top my head. We found hair in the splintered glass later that evening. I missed the first night of the campout, missed the canoeing (which I didn’t think was any big loss), but managed to get there by late Saturday afternoon. I was a little shaken, but I felt fine. I have always worn my seatbelt since.