Driving her car

[BigBigBear]

My wife bought a cherry '94 Jeep Grand Cherokee last July - only 82K miles on it, and she fixed it up nice. Yakima ski rack, nice stereo(courtesy a Xmas gift from me), vacummed out, brand new BFG AT's. She had only put 5K on it by the time she passed away last June 5th.

Trouble is, it's a stick, one of the very last std transmissions they put in the Grand. I've never driven a stick, not for real (in traffic, etc). It sat at our house until the last week of July; when I went into full moving chaos, I asked our longtime 4x4 mechanics to hold onto for a spell, and they graciously agreed to.

So now....I'm going to pick it up (actually, have a friend pick it up) and drive it to my house on Friday. Sunday, unless a perfect rafting day intervenes, I have a freelance driving instructor coming over to educate me on the mystical vagaries of driving a standard transmission. My neighborhood is a pretty good place to learn, lots of VERY quiet side streets, and my office is only two miles away and has football field sized parking lots which will be pretty empty on Sunday afternoon.

And then, presumably, I'll be driving my wife's car.

I wish I could say I was doing this with bravery and bouyant, forward-looking optimism about my future - but in reality, my truck needs about 2 days/$400 worth of work, and I won't have anything to get around unless I get my drooping posterior in gear and start driving this Jeep. I suppose my wife would approve - she always said she'd teach me. We just ran out of time.

Wish me luck - and don't ask how I managed to make it to 46 without learning how to drive a stick. I'm in no mood.