29. Learn to drive stick shift

Did you know that some people actually choose to complicate their lives by adding a whole plethora of steps to the driving process? They call this a "manual transmission" vehicle and yes, people make a conscious choice to purchase such a vehicle. I don't know why. I mean personally my life is complicated enough, and I have plenty to think about while driving without constantly remembering to let up on gas, push on clutch, shift gear, now ease off clutch, press on gas... whew... makes me exhausted just thinking about it.

So why, you may ask, after that tirade would I have added to my 101 list of things to do "learn to drive stick shift." Well, while I was not a boy scout (for obvious reason) I do try to live by the old adage, "always be prepared." You never know when you may have to drive someone's vehicle, and it has happened to me on more than one occasion where it would have been very beneficial for me to have this skill.


And so I embarked on a set of missions. The first mission was to find someone who not only owned a manual transmission vehicle but who also possessed an extreme amount of patience. Once that was completed it was time to hit the parking lots. Unfortunately, my wonderful instructor had other ideas and we headed straight to the streets. I'm not going to lie, it was just short of pee-in-your-pants-terrifying, but it's just like throwing someone into a pool, they'll either sink, or swim. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to report that I swam... well sort of... It wasn't pretty the first couple times, and there were a couple slip ups which included me becoming overly frustrated and someone passing me on the shoulder, but hey, a girl's gotta start somewhere. And so after many jumpy rides, I set out on my own and successfully completed a round trip with the stick shift!