Sunday, August 10, 2008

Lisa, the gearhead . . .

. . . drove my hotrod today.

I was not locked in the boot, as someone suggested.

This is not an easy car to drive. It has manual steering, manual brakes, and a fairly obscene amount of horsepower. Somewhere north of 430, I believe.

She did more than fairly well at it, except for shifting the transmission. Although it is an automatic, it does have seven different detents: Park, Neutral, Reverse, and four forward speeds. It also has a separate grip lever to prevent inappropriate shifts - like second to reverse. The grip lever has to be operated in a certain sequence which she did not have time to learn.

She negotiated through the neighborhood and down a rather winding rural road. I never felt the slightest concern.

There was a brief flashback, though, when she asked about a turn. I said "turn right here," and suddenly remembered the first time I said that. On that occasion, Right here happened to be between a lamp post and a mail box and into someone's front yard.

The "Mystery Shifter"