I'm a shit driver. I thought I'd put it out there straight up. None of this - "I'm a bit of a nervous driver"; "Yes, I just lack a bit of confidence on the road". No, I'm definitely crap. Even with a GPS I'm bloody hopeless and get all sweaty when I have to change lanes above 60km an hour. I was reminded by my best friend of my younger years, just yesterday, how hysterical she found it when I took her for a spin in Mum's mazda on my first day on the road. While seeking a park, I smashed straight through the red and white bar at the Centrepoint car park while hanging out the window trying to reach for my ticket. . I hit the accelerator instead of the brake.....it could happen to anyone.....Things went downhill from there. A month later, I forgot to put my mother's car into 'park' and chased it down the driveway to see it stack into the fence. I also had an accident outside my work....with the boss's wife.
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| It's sad how your once favourite shows become unwatchable |
It didn't help that my first car was the biggest piece of shit existing on the planet. I bought it from the girlfriend of my parent's mechanic. How suss. I think I rebuilt that baby from the inside out. He made some good $ from moi. It was constantly breaking down in really bad places - the middle of town at 9am, on the southern outlet while I was chugging up the hill. Once, after I bought a new engine that day (after many months of waitressing at the Doctor Syntax to pay it off), my useless crap heap broke down in the small laneway of the Syntax, on a speed bump. I got out of the car and shoved it with all my furious might, only to panic as it began rolling backwards. It was headed for a whole car park full of cars, with me standing at the front watching it going "oooops". I certainly didn't go "oooops" when the door swung open and ripped off the hinges against the laneway wall. I screamed so loud that the neighbours thought I was being raped and came running to help (me, not the rapist). At least they could lift it off the wall for me and lend me some rope to tie the door on. I "Dukes of Hazzard"ed that metal shit box for about 6 months.
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| Do these even exist anymore? |
I've become even more anxious on the road since the girls were born. I truly found driving them around really frightening initially, and would keep that pedal firmly off the metal. However, I probably endangered their lives more, by driving 20kmph than I would have at 120kmph. Many years ago, I used to mock those knobs who drive around with "Baby On Board" signs on their back window. "Who gives a shit bitches" I would think as I contemplated side-swiping their annoying vehicle. What do you want me to do....give a little wave as I go by??? Shove off. But......I get it now. They were just terrified, and at least they were actually driving. Those stupid signs are still pathetic though. No matter how afraid I was, I would never stoop so low.
So instead, basically I handball the driving responsibility on every time we leave these shores. Poor Chalks. Even when he's so tired he's practically falling asleep, I don't offer to take the wheel. I just suggest he pulls over for a power nap. I think this quality of mine really annoys him, but he's gracious enough not to force me into the drivers seat. We've been on a fair few road trips on our travels as well. A bit of a different strategy had to be employed when the ratbags joined us. When they were little, they slept a lot, so it was OK for a while (hint: roundabouts induce sleep). But since then, it's a lot tougher to keep two small children happy in a car. It's much more difficult than on a plane or train. In a car they are strapped down....and they don't like it. One little bit. If you've got one of those cars with the screens on the back of your headrests, you are totally laughing. An over it parent definitely came up with that invention.....
I wondered what to do about car seats when we first left Australia. We didn't have our own. Our first country where we had a car was Morocco. The car company had only one baby seat available. We were forced to improvise. I sat in the back with a Baby Bjorn on. I wouldn't recommend it. If you absolutely have too, put the seat belt around you, but not around the baby carrier. It wasn't just safety that made this option undesirable, but the heat too. It was so god dam boiling there. With a living hot water bottle pressed up against your torso it was a sweaty nightmare. There are special safety harnesses you can buy and attach to yourself, or the car seat if they are older. They look bulky though. Why not just take a proper seat? Although I'm not shunning safety....much.....I guess sometimes you have to just go with the flow. This happens a lot in Thailand - as you despair about the lack of seat belts in a taxi - and then a family of five goes past on a motorbike with a 1 year old standing on the handlebars. It's a tough one though. We bought our own car seats in the US when the girls were 10 months old, and have travelled with them ever since. Just remember to chose dark colours. Our pink one gets majorly festy after each flight if they're not bagged. You always feel better when you can't actually see the true extent of the filth.
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| Ait Ben Haddou - Don't be jealous of my hair everyone....oh jesus, I just realised I could have died with this style - doomed for eternity |
During this trip to Morocco we did something that will forever haunt me as the epitome of bad parenting. I still feel guilty whenever I think about it. It was an accident though. We didn't imagine taking the back road home from Ait Ben Haddou would be equal to spending seven hours in quaking terror. Chalky bravely steered our 4WD (with our two tiny baby girls in it), along a bolder-ridden, one-lane, gravelly steep incline. This also was right on the edge of a hundred metre drop off into a canyon in the Atlas Mountains. It took us seven sickening fear-filled hours to get ourselves out of that 42km mess. There is no way I can convey to anyone how frightened we were that day, how guilty and ashamed we felt for putting our girls into that situation, and the effect that an extended period of adrenaline pumping time has on your body. It took us days to get over it.
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Myself, Chalky, and my sister all truly believed we were going to die. The car constantly felt like it was going to tip over the edge. It was being thrown around like a toy as Chalks drove over giant rocks. As the petrol gauge ran longer and longer on empty, and it grew darker and darker, it became even worse (though at least we couldn't actually see the drop off anymore I guess). The whole experience came to a peak when we took a wrong turn and ended up on a cattle track sliding down a mountain straight for the edge of the canyon. We had no choice but to try and steer out of it.....backwards....in the dark. After already clocking up five hours of terror I was green. We decided that my sister and I, and the babies, would get out as soon as we could, and walk down the cattle track, so we didn't all end up plummeting to our deaths. Hopefully we would be able to direct Chalks to safety as well.
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| "I think I can smell poo poo" |
However, during my exit, I became entangled in the seat belt with Cordi strapped to me in the Baby Bjorn. The car started skidding backwards again in the gravel. This was the last straw. I was utterly terrified, and hysterical, I couldn't get free from the car (which was all I had wanted for quite some time)........and basically I had a breakdown and shat my pants. This was the first time such a thing had happened since Christmas Day '98 when I pulled up in the driveway at my parents house, really hungover, and followed through. I recalled that I wasn't missing anything. All I can say is, thank god for baby wipes (and a deep canyon to chuck my undies into). That's the thing with shit though. Not matter how hard you try, that aroma just lingers. According to my sister it was more than a linger. This made it embarrassing when we picked up an Berber who promised to wake the petrol shop man and get us some fuel. By this stage though we suspected that the worst was over and we were going to make it. It the face of such celebrations - what's a little shit between friends....?
So there we go. I'm back to stories about poo. It had been a while, so I thought perhaps you were all ready to go there again. Don't worry no pictures.......
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| Just a little cuteness to 'wipe' away that last visual imagery |
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