On Driving and Being Driven

I admit to be the WORSE backseat driver on earth. It's stronger than me, I am TERRIBLE. I am coming to term with it, but seriously, when I say I am bad I mean it. I point the way. If I am not saying it out loud, I am pointing interiorly. On the bright side, I manage to keep this at bay with people I don’t know very well, but the more comfortable I get, the more I start taking control of their driving habits. My MBA classmates can confirm to this (sorry ladies!).

What this mean is that, with my husband, I am so bad that I "might" be driven, but I am actually DRIVING all the time. I tell him which lane he should be in, tell him what speed he should drive (usually higher than the one he drives at), and better yet, I actually POINT the way HOME! As if he didn’t know where we live!! If I am in the car with him, he might be holding the wheel, but I am driving- I give him a lot of credit for bearing with me when we go somewhere. Do you know how hard it is for someone to always tell you, over and over again, how to get to your own apartment??? I can only imagine, so I love him so much more because he doesn’t yell at me, he doesn’t get upset, and he doesn’t even make fun of me (anymore). I would be the one getting upset and yelling at me. Ehm, at him, whatever!

What is best, though, is that while he never complains (I would say he has given up), sometimes I try to operate a certain degree of self restrain. That’s when he misses the exit, ends up in the wrong lane, and has to make impossible u-turns in ridiculously narrow roads. (Okay, it doesn’t happen ALL the time I manage to shut up, but sometimes is good enough and to the point!) I think this gives me moral latitude to point the way out loud for the next ten times we’re in the car together. And, yes, I still understand how much he must love me to put up with that!