Why I should take the bus or get a sturdy horse

I am a bad driver.

I will be the first to admit my mind may wander, the radio or passenger may distract me, and simple traffic laws are sometimes forgotten. What seems most unfortunate, however, is that I seem to be rubbing off on those around me.

My poor one-year-old Mazda is now in need of a new hood and front grill. She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named accidentally backed into my car in her own driveway. She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named felt, understandably, mortified and apologetic, but I took the incident in stride: no one was injured; it's just a car.

I'm just glad it wasn't my fault this time.

My track record has proven the inadequacy of my skills. My very first experience driving with my Dad while at the wheel of my parent's red Subaru tooling slowly around our gravel county roads went well enough...until I tried pulling into our garage and instead ran into the side of the door. An unfortunate miscalculation. Later, during my Driver's Education class practice for the final test (which, if I passed, would eliminate the need to take the actual final) I ran over and killed a squirrel. The tragedy was compounded by the fact that they called me "Killer" for the rest of the semester and I was forced to take the final test anyway because the instructor said I had gotten "too close to humans or animals" on the practice try. The casualty list didn't end with that one innocent, albeit suicidal, squirrel. My high school Sunday school class had a board on which they kept tally of my numerous vehicular manslaughters. I was particularly adept at slamming into birds at 60 miles per hour.

The worst incident, however, occurred late one evening while leaving a ceramics class in my Mother's car. "Look left, then right, then left again" didn't help me much on the high hills and low valleys of State Road 26 when I pulled out in front of a truck that had been concealed in the low dip. I was so shocked by the accident that I completely forgot to look at the damage to my Mother's car until after we had exchanged information (note to readers: don't take the other driver's advice not to call the police; insurance is a bitch if the accident isn't properly recorded). The truck, surely traveling over the 50 mile per hour speed limit, had scraped and badly dented almost the entire right side of my Mother's car. No one was injured, the air bags didn't even deploy, and two new car doors later everything was as good as new, but for the next year or so, every time I made a left hand turn, I winced. I was like Pavlov's dog, only not as cute or slobbery.

In spite of my poor driving skills, a car seems to be necessary in order to complete day-to-day travails. Living in rural Indiana and working about 30 miles away from my current abode, a bus simply isn't a feasible solution. Perhaps I should invest in a horse.