A Driving Force

“I’ll pick you up at 10:00”, she said.

“You sure?”, I ask, feeling a little uncomfortable. 

“See you then.”, she says. 

Ten o’clock, on the nut, she shows up ready for an adventure. I thought the adventure was the hike but little did I know the adventure began there and then. This tiny woman is nearly sitting on the steering wheel, the seat is that close. She pulls out onto the highway, a little too slow for the flow of traffic. Staying in the middle of the lane is a task she is not quite up too. I try to be quiet to allow her to concentrate but she’s a talker and talk she does. She brakes a little slow, has trouble on curves and the parking job was abysmal.  

Relieved we are at our destination, I get out to allow her to park close to the barrier. We exit and walk away when I remind her she forgotten her gloves. It’s chilly out. We head back, she searches all her pockets for her keys. No where. “Are they still in the car?”, I inquire. She has a surprised look and opens the door of that pretty white Mercedes Benz and locates her gloves and her keys. 😳

Off we go…..she’s quite the hiker at 84. She speeds along with determination, insisting we get to the destination. I knew we would not, it was way too far but I didn’t mind at all. The company was good and the scenery stunning. Eventually she admits she needs to turn around but not before we make it nearly 2 miles, all uphill. Not bad for two old broads.

We head back to the car and my anxiety kicks up a notch. I set my resolve. “You can do this Lin”, I tell myself and hop in the passenger side. A few minutes after getting on the highway she decides we need to know how far we walked and starts to look for her phone. It’s deep in her pocket. She starts digging, and swerving and digging some more. I’m positive I had my legs braced and a look of horror but she seemed not to notice her passenger was terrified. Finally finding her phone, she takes both hands off the wheel in order to read her mileage app.

Her passenger finally had enough. “WHOA WINNIE! I’ll do that for you!” I said through clinched teeth. I retrieved the phone and satisfied her curiosity.  

I got home in one piece. I kissed the ground beneath my feet and I decided that as much I love Winnie dearly, I will never, EVER get in the car with that woman again.