By Marla Boone
Contributing columnist
At the risk of sounding like a character out of “Rain Man,” it should be known that I am a very good driver. And safe. I don’t tailgate. I use turn signals even when there is not another car in sight. Just to be sure. I don’t weave in and out of traffic in order to sit and wait at the next red light three seconds longer than the guy I just passed. I keep track of the cars around me so I am the first to know when they do something that requires me to hasten out of the crash zone. I am that annoying person at the stop sign who will not pull out in front of oncoming traffic with zero room to spare, causing them to slam on their brakes. I do not engage in road rage unless very creative and emphatic cursing at the idiot in front of me constitutes road rage.
My friend Kevin is not, in my humble and admittedly unsought-after opinion, a good driver. I think he drives too fast. I think he merges too closely to other cars. I think he brakes too abruptly at stop signs. Keven’s dog, who is always with him, has grown accustomed to being catapulted over the front seat console when Kevin brakes. We keep his toenails extra long for gripping ability. He (Kevin, not the dog) has some very sketchy reasoning about why he brakes so hard. ATK — according to Kevin — it makes good mechanical sense to keep his foot on the gas until the last possible nanosecond and then stomp on the brakes forcefully. He says (again, Kevin not the dog) it makes the brakes last longer because his foot is on the brake pedal for a very brief, albeit very lively, amount of time. A side benefit is that we don’t have to take the dog to King’s Island because he is getting an E-ticket ride right in the car.
If George H.W. Bush accused Ronald Reagan of voodoo economics, then I accuse Kevin of voodoo mechanics.
When I am in the car with Kevin, I naturally am quite helpful with my suggestions. I also assist by pointing out, sometimes in full voice, other cars on the road about which Kevin has one of two feelings. Either he doesn’t see them (bad) or doesn’t care that he is about to violate John Toland’s law on impenetrability which states two items cannot occupy the same space at the same time (worse).
Kevin drives a big SUV — tank-like is not too strong a word. He has been at the wheel of some sort of vehicle since he was 10 years old. The immediate question is: how in the world did he survive 57 years of life, on the road or in the farm field, without my help? The dog certainly can’t chime in with suggestions. He is too busy clinging to the rear seat upholstery (what’s left of it) to avoid going through the windshield.
For all his good qualities, Kevin has one glaring flaw and that is, he is not a pilot. He had never flown in a small airplane until he met me. To his eternal credit, he is an amazingly good sport. He climbs in, sits down, belts up, and goes along. Recently, though, things have changed. Perhaps, just perhaps, in retaliation, he has started helping me fly. If you could see me in person, you would see that I am making those sarcastic air quotes around the word helping. He makes suggestions, too. More air quotes.
I’ll hear this little voice in the radio headset saying things like, “Maybe you should add more power. … Maybe you should reduce power.” And on one particularly memorable day, “I think I’m going to throw up.”
But I have the advantage. When he starts in while we’re flying, though, I can just unplug the headset. Let’s see him try that in the car.
Marla Boone resides in Covington and writes for Miami Valley Today.
