Today was the pinnacle of my driving on the “other” side. The goal was to take wiperless turns. It took me some time to get used to changing the transmission drive with my left hand and that short left turn and looking to the right at the roundabouts and all that. But try as I might, I never could program it in my mind that the indicator light controls are on my right.
Every single turn, I would go – “Okay, I am turning left. That is a short turn. I need to look to my right. Got it. I am prepared. Now, let’s get everybody else prepared.” Then I should have gone “here is my left turn indicator blinking……. and….. and …..here I turn”. Instead it went something like “here is my left turn indicator …. and… WHOA! Where did the wipers start swinging from?”. Total confusion!! Not that having the rain wipers on on a bright sunlit day is not ridiculous enough. I would be panicking at that moment – “where is the danged turn indicator”?
A quick fraction of a second later, senses would come back to me. Swift push up on the stick out on the right of the steering wheel and a swift push down on the stick on the left and the world ostensibly would be alright again.
I would pull up to the intersection, the left indicator flicking merrily and I looking to my right with that “I got this one” attitude towards my fellow passengers when that imbecile of a wiper would sweep again! What do you know? I had not pushed the stick all the way up. So, the wipers were still operational – just with a slower speed.
After three days of driving thusly, today’s sole goal was to make completely wiperless turns. And I might add, with great satisfaction, that when I pulled the car into the rental car center, I had successively done so.
Now watch for all the fun once I reach Atlanta and pull our car from the parking lot 🙂 🙂
