Driving Miss Dani

Ok, she's going to kill me for saying this, but my wee wife, the cream in my coffee, the jam on my toast, the milk of my magnesia, is a terrible driver. She wrecked my truck last week, her sixth such adventure in the nearly 11 years of our marriage. Right around 1 wrecked car every 2 years. After each wreck, she is humble, contrite, self-flagellating, but gradually, as the 2 year clock starts ticking, something rises in her, an aggressiveness born, I suspect, from a lifetime of scanted regard --due to her size, no doubt--until, at the end of that 2 year cycle, she becomes 4'11", 95 pounds of pure "Fuck You" behind the wheel. Then--CRASH!-- and the contrition begins again.

This last one was a case of her pushing the envelope to get to work, riding the ass of the car ahead, until she rear-ended it. I arrived before the cop did, and I asked her what happened, and she said the woman in the car ahead was "playing games", tapping on her brake as if the furious little person in the big truck were following too closely. I looked at her for a moment. "You rear-ended her! YOU WERE FOLLOWING TOO CLOSELY!!"

This is a woman who calls me grandpa for my careful driving, who always pushes me to change lanes, pick up the pace, give the finger to the slowpoke up ahead of me. On more than one occasion, I have to say, " Can you name the DECADE in which I last had an accident?" 

Once, while driving the wrong way down a one-way brick street in German Village, she t-boned a meat truck--yes, I am aware of the pun--and got out of the car (again, mine!), stormed toward the bewildered trucker, who must have thought he was being attacked by a rogue member of the Lollipop Guild, and demanded just what the hell he thought he was doing. When he nervously reminded her she was driving the wrong way, she froze for a second, and burst into tears.

I love this woman to the bottom of my brackish soul, but I know she's going to kill me one day--either from a fiery crash with a school bus full of handicapped kids, or from a coronary the next time the roads are icy, and she's been gone a little longer than usual, and the phone rings.