Bad Driver

I've never been a good driver; something about stinking at video games
translated into having less hand-eye coordination skills than my
friends growing up. Nor have I ever been good at directions,
especially when they deviate from a simple core (like an urban grid or
a handful of key markers). Add to all that how infrequent I drive
nowadays, and you have a recipe for getting lost and narrowly avoiding
collisions.

Indeed, it had been 11 days since I last drove when I strapped my
family in for a run to the aquarium. Our usual route was thwarted by
President-elect Obama's presence at 30th Street Station, detouring me
into Center City where I could not sniff the road I was looking for to
save my life. Somehow, we ended up near where we go grocery shopping,
so we decided to pick up a few things while we were there. From
there, I probably took a far more circuitous route than I had to in
order to get to our destination, marveling along the way at how bad
the drivers around me were when in fact it was likely me that was not
fitting in. I topped it off by missing my turn on the way home and
tacking on a few extra minutes to that journey.

When we finally got home, I slowly eased away from our car and thought
to myself, "Let's not do that for another 11 days." It would be in
the best interest of the safety of my car and my family, and the cars
and families around me, if that was the case.