Narrative

Narrative

My hands trembled as I put the key in the ignition, and my heart fluttered in anticipation. With one hand on the steering wheel, and my foot poised lightly over the brake, I realized I had been waiting all my life for this exact moment. I thought back to years prior, full of Top Gear, a computer hard drive filled with Need for Speed, and Motortrend magazine, and remembered just how badly I had wanted to be where I was now. I thought back to my childhood, and the memories of me racing my hot wheels all around my track while my mother yelled at me to stop ruining the carpet. I remember sitting at the dinner table each night, while my dad complained about traffic, icy roads, and how he wished he didn't have to drive, and thinking to myself, how can one think such thoughts as sinful as those?

“You have to turn the key, otherwise the car won't start,” my dad said sarcastically. I was quickly jerked back to reality, and realized I had been sitting there silently for the better part of a minute. Before I could turn the key however, I caught a glimpse of something on the other side of the parking lot. It was a third generation Chevy Camaro. I felt a certain jealousy of the owner, but quickly brushed it off. After all, this was my first day of learning to drive, and my mom's maroon 1999 Ford Taurus was entirely sufficient for that purpose. I turned the key in the ignition; the engine turned over but didn't start. I tried again, but with no avail. At this point I remember a few teenagers walking across the parking lot, who turned to locate the source of the petrol fumes and failing engine. I don't really think they cared much looking back upon it now, but at the time I was sure they were laughing at my pathetic car and my pathetic attempts to start it. My face turned a vivid scarlet, and I'm sure I looked like a human tomato. My heart sank when I saw them get into the Camaro and roar off. Determined to redeem myself, I gave the key one last turn, and thankfully, it sputtered to life.

The engine sound was, needless to say, disappointing. For some reason, I had thought that when I turned the key the engine would roar to life like a Porsche 911. Keep in mind I had ridden in this car for more than a decade, so why I thought that I don't know. I suppose it was some fantasy I had conjured up over the years, where I pictured myself as some kind of petrolhead with “the magic touch”. Driving a car was not at all how I thought it would be either. It was a cold winter afternoon, and there was still some snow in the parking lot that the salt had yet to take care of. I lumbered along in circles around the parking lot, my dad occasionally giving my steering wheel adjustments to prevent a devastating accident from happening at 10 miles per hour. It was completely devoid of the glamor that I thought it would be full of. The fact that the gas gauge kept creeping closer and closer towards the red line marked empty, didn't necessarily help either. Eventually, my dad decided that was enough for one day, and we switched seats so he could take us home.

Once again, I was the passenger, and I began thinking back to all those Christmas parties, where uncles and aunts would go on about the drabs of driving. Would I eventually become like them? I didn't want to lose that childhood vision of the ultimate driving experience, a scene of a Honda S2000 cruising around the Isle of Man. I kept thinking about it, and I kept coming to a conclusion somewhat cliché. That sometimes things aren't all you imagine them out to be. Driving certainly wasn't. It was a truckload of rules and instruction; it certainly wasn't about going 0-60 full throttle or mastering corners like I had painted it out to be. However, those picturesque fantasies of the perfect drive, they were still there, in spite of the hard dose of reality I had just received. They were something I could look back and smile upon one day when I got stuck in downtown traffic, or pulled over for “accidentally” running a stop sign.