Driving stories

Andy and I went over to Assguard tonight to meet with Mark, Doyle and Shwu and divvy up the communal camping items for this weekend's Trail of Tears hike. Andy offered to carpool together, and stopped by Krikitt Downs to pick me up. I'm not sure what prompted me, but I offered him the S4 car keys, and he gladly accepted.

On the drive over, I commented that I hadn't actually opened up the throttle to the car yet, though James had offered to help me out in that task if needed. I used the excuse about needing new tires, but the reality is I'm a bit nervous about it. The last time I opened up a car's throttle full tilt was in the S2000, and that escapade nearly ended disasterously as the backend broke and I ended up fishtailing the car down a major Sunnyvale road in the middle of the day: had any bicyclist been riding next to me that day, I probably would have killed him.

So, yeah, I was a little nervous about the thought of opening the throttle anywhere but under a safe, controlled environment where the worst I can do is hurt only myself.

After telling him this story, Andy mentioned he had another car other than the truck, a car he really liked, and another one his dad borrows. I laughed when he told me this. For the last four months I've been feeling awkward about the increase in our environmental footprint, what with our owning 3.5 cars between the two of us. Every time I'd see Andy and his one truck, which he uses rarely as he bikes a lot, I'd feel guilty about all of our cars. Turns out, Andy was in a similar situation, owning multiple cars, but with all of them at least used minimally.

The rest of the drive was spent alternating between laughing at stories of our idiotic driving as youngsters and complete embarrassment at being such idiots. Ah, youth: it's a good thing we grow out of it.

I wish I could remember what started an exchange between Mark and me at one point in the evening. He had casually offered something sexual in response to a question I asked, and I accepted. I figure, if I'm going to call a guy on something like that, Mark is the safest guy in the world to call. Part of his charm. Of course, I can't remember my initial comment/question, which would have made this part of the story actually funny.