The Joy of Shifting

There it was—right in the middle of the suggested reading list: Intended for Pleasure. “Don’t read that one until the last month of your engagement,” my premarital counselor warned with half a smirk. Even though reared in hard line Baptist mixed with Catholic heritage, I was amused that any young couple had to be told that the Maker made sex for fun as much as anything else.
I guess couples in droves approach sex with the perfunctory of toll booths, the variety of an interstate, and the exhilaration of the speed limit. They probably learned sex through the encyclopedia and driving in physics class.
It’s true. Point A and Point B define the start and finish. It’s also true that you can span these points with an Aerostar or an Aston Martin, a Fiesta or or Ferrari. While finances and circumstance may confine your choice of whip and daily path, the drive need not always lay missionary.
For me, the first step to arousing the journey out of the trip requires an extra pedal. I can operate garden tractors and bumper cars, when I want to think only about stop versus go, forward versus backward. I can ride a bus when I want to check out from the responsibility of driving. But sometimes the shower and kitchen table trump a master bedroom.
The requirement to listen to my car, to feel my engine, to read more than the road unites me with my wheels. I am connecting with the journey, the path, the ride. It’s a dance, sometimes ballroom technical, sometimes sensual freelance.
Shift points, like foreplay, present choices with different answers at different times. An automatic transmission makes decisions automatic, if not unmade. [P][R][D][1][2] spells an illiteracy of situational wisdom. The computer probably knows better, maybe gets you better gas mileage. But we know how well computers are at dating site chemistry.
It doesn’t have to be my car. Any vehicle requiring both hands and both feet to motor qualifies. My grampa’s Silverado W/T and our Daihatsu rental in New Zealand didn’t slither through curves and explode though clover leafs, but they proved adventures—like the first lunch or only movie with one of the “just for fun” dates back in college.
So, I don’t care what you drive. You can compensate with size or speed, sum or sculpted lines. But if it’s not a stick shift, you’re not driving.
If you think you are, I’ve got a book for you that I don’t need.