(no subject) [The Stars and the Cookie Jar]

Okay. So it took her four days, but my mother in law finally pissed me off but good.

MIL: Are you going to learn to drive?

Me: No.

MIL: Well, why not?

Me: I've spent close to $8200 trying to fulfill the learn-to-drive requirements in Massachusetts, where I got my permit, since I was sixteen. I've taken road tests five times and never passed. [Not mentioned, but worth reckoning, are the two cars I smashed beyond general recognition trying to learn to drive - one into a Lally column, and one into the guard barrels of an off ramp]

MIL: (witheringly) But that makes N do all the driving.

Yes, lady, I am fucking degenerate and sit off in a corner drooling and spasming quietly to myself, and therefore, when your daughter has finished dabbing my chin with my bib, she will have to drive us home. I am just so imbecilic that I cannot drive. Never mind that really, you and your mailbox and your tree and your lamppost and your telephone-pole are happier that way.

Goddamn it. So angry. You didn't hear her voice, her smarmy, disbelieving, patronising voice.

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Why do people freak out so much when one half of the couple drives?

I drive and Zaph usually doesn't, and we both prefer it that way. And it's really stupid and annoying when one of us gets prodded for it.

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Ah, heck, my spouse is, theoretically, physically capable of driving, has driven for years, etc. etc., and I still don't let him drive.

If it's a problem for your wife, then it's a problem, and you have to do something about it. If it's a problem for your MIL, have another drink and think about how amazing it is that, despite having been raised by these meddling people, your wife has turned out so great.

And, please: four days from now, when my in-laws are here, come give me the same advice. Because they do get up one's nose, don't they?

I gotta go clean now....

I don't drive either, and for much the same reasons. It scares the ever-loving snot out of us, and that makes us dangerous behind the wheel of a large vehicle that goes "vroom!" Call me crazy, but I think it's a good and sensible thing that I choose to let other people do the driving for me rather than risk not only my life, but the lives of my theoretical passengers and everyone else out on the road.

I can't sympathize with any in-law bitching right now, really, though ordinarily I'd be all over it.

Nonetheless, that is just lame. No business of anybody's how any of us work out our lives, is it? Bah!

People who have to prod and patronize when they find out adults can't drive have been the bane of my existence for ten years. Most recently it was my very nice and undeniably well-intentioned neighbor who commented when she saw me get out of a cab. It makes me mad, too.