Friday, October 19, 2012

Adventures in Spatial Reasoning

I drove Dylan to work this morning and on the way, I noticed we were low on gas, so we stopped at a gas station. As I pulled in, I noticed that all of the easy to access pumps (i.e. pumps I could drive right up to) were taken and so I stopped behind a car to wait.

Dylan: What are you doing?

Me: Waiting for an empty pump.

Dylan:...there's one right there...(pointing to the pump ahead of the car in front of me)

Me: That one doesn't count.

Dylan: What? It's free.

Me: No, I mean, I can't get in there.

Dylan: Just pull ahead of the car and back up.

Me: Okay...(I pulled ahead of the car rather crookedly and then stopped)

Dylan: What are you doing?

Me: Trying to figure out how to back up.

Dylan: (in an I-can't-believe-I-married-this-idiot voice) Put. the car. in. reverse.

Me: Duh! I'm not an idiot. But I'm going to have to turn the wheel and I'm trying to remember which way.

I started to back up and realized I was turning the wrong direction and about to hit the car next to me and stopped.

Me: Okay, see? Can't be done. Let's just wait.

Dylan: Oh my God. Here.

He grabbed the wheel and turned it hard in the other direction. I backed up. Lo and behold, we lined up with the pump.

Dylan: How do you even drive?

Me: See, I told you. This is exactly why I don't drive on the freeway.

Dylan: That has nothing to do with backing up. If you're backing up on the freeway, you're doing it wrong!

Me: No, I mean...okay you know how you're tone deaf.

Dylan: (glaring) Yeah.

Me: Okay, so I'm...space blind. No matter how many times I see someone else make maneuvers through space I can't replicate them, just like you sound like Chewbacca when you're trying to sing lullabies.

Dylan: ...

Me: So, say I'm trying to merge onto the freeway. I'm just as likely to end up careening into the oncoming lanes or Dukes-of-Hazzarding it off the side of the ramp into the McDonald's across the way.

Dylan: ...

Me: That might be funny, actually. I wonder if you get points if you make it cleanly through one of the golden arches, hehe.

Dylan: Please don't drive me to work ever again.


7 comments:

  1. I love the last line! It makes the whole story just that much better!

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  2. Just out of curiosity, do you know your left and right? I have to make an "L" with my left hand each time to figure it out.

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    1. I do fine with my left and right, but if I have to figure out someone else's left and right, I always mess it up, haha.

      I swear I'm not a moron...well...okay...outside of this one particular area.

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    2. LOL! I love the way you continue on a tangent with Dylan not saying a thing...until the end ;-)

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    3. Conversations with Dylan are often more me spewing out nonsense until he finally stops me than actual back-and-forth. Although, they are just as often him spewing out scientific or gaming facts at me until I stop him, so it evens out. It's our thing, haha.

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  3. That sounds an awful lot like Brian and I...scary, right?

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  4. Ha ha! When I was out of the country in September, Tom went out and bought a new car. He traded in his own, but intended on me to drive the new one, and a big part of the criteria when he was shopping was that it was smaller and easier to park and reverse for me. I'm famous for hitting things when backing up, and even more famous for canceling plans if I get somewhere and have to parallel park. I would never, ever go up to a pump if it required parallel parking or backing into it!

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