I don’t mean to brag (yeah I do) but, I am an awesome driver. Not Nascar/stunt driver type, but the kind that is able to navigate traffic like a freaking boss. (Just so you know, bosses like to yell at their inferiors.) I’m such a good driver, in fact that I can do multiple things while driving. Let’s just say that if you were to see some of the things I did while driving, you would probably want to skewer me on a barbecue. And pull over and wait for an hour. I would tell you, but I think at least one cop follows my blog. I have the instincts of a guy that wakes up from a dream just before dying. I might swerve and brake fast, but I won’t get in an accident. It just won’t happen.
Don’t be a hater though(you can be a bitterer though), it’s just that I started driving young. I grew up on the mean streets of South Dakota where the legal driving age was 14 and in order to practice for the test, I started when I was 3. Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t because the farmers needed to have their 14 year old kids driving the tractor to maintain the farms, but for the pure reason of allowing a kid prodigy to get his license(me in case you were wondering). You know how when your super smart kid is bored in school because his or her brain is so far above the level of other kids in class, that he or she starts trying new things? No? Well, I can’t help you there. But I was that kid driving prodigy. I would get so bored driving an automatic car, that I would stick my legs outside the car (it was mostly because they were so white and it only got above 45 for about three months of the year there). I decided that I needed to drive stick (or manual or whatever you like to call it) because automatic wasn’t cutting it. I mastered that so fast that I asked my dad what the third kind of way to drive cars was. He said there was none. I was disappointed, so I learned how to drift long before it was a thing. Not the kind in The Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift, but the kind where I let go of the wheel and my cars alignment took over. Even then, when I tempted fate, no accident.
The thing that makes me an even better driver is that I haven’t driven the world’s finest machine’s like a Lamborghini, or a Ferrari, or even a Ford Focus. I’ve pretty much driven the dirty laundry at the bottom of the hamper. My cars in no particular order, Volkswagen Beetle, Volkswagen Beetle, Volkswagen Beetle, and a Volkswagen Beetle. Then there were three C’s of the 80’s, the Chevelle, the Chevette, the Citation (ironically the car I got my first citation in). I managed to drive these terrible cars in snow, ice, rain, black ice, black snow, black rain, and even somehow managed to drive them on a dry surface on a sunny day, even with the sun all in my face.
In all those years, in all the stunt driving I did, no matter how much I tried, I’ve never been in an accident that was my fault. There was the one time where I managed to drive over a median, hit a sign, and avoid another car, all while going 55 around a curve. There was the other time where I managed to get so close to an accident that I took my driver’s side mirror out, but left the rest of the car intact. There were the times when in my Dodge Caliber, in a snowpacalypse that rivaled Boston’s this year, I drove up steep hills to make it to work, while Hummers, SUV’s, and 4 wheel drive trucks were taking the day off to have a ditch convention on the side of the road. Problem being, they got to go to a convention, and I got to go to work.
If you were to promise me a sports car, if I got in an accident in my Dodge Caliber before it was time to retire it and trade it in for my next clunker, I would do everything in my power to crash that thing (text while Ipoding, changing clothes while putting headphones on and driving through questionable yellow lights) and I still wouldn’t be able to get into one. Be bitter all you want, but I am a child prodigy. There could be a 50 car pile up in the road and I could be right in the middle of it, but I would manage to drive right through like a stunt driver. But look way less cool doing it.
Being this talented is a bitter curse. I get to work on day’s that no one else gets in and no sports car for me.
AAAAARRRRGGGHHHH
Bitter Driver Ben
What is it with people in the country and kids driving young. My dad had us driving long before we could see over the wheel. Maybe the have more kids than they need.
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Some states don’t even let you drive until 18. I was like what? Why? It would be so much better to train them young.
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Maybe you should be the one teaching Neds kid to drive..
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I’ll be teaching my kids that’s for sure. My wife wants nothing to do with it.
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I don’t blame her!
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It could be scary for either one of them for different reasons.
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Ha! Yes!
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I’ll be letting them pay for their own insurance.
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Good plan! The Bitter Ben ins. plan
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The bitter ben plan is expensive for everyone but me.
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Why but you?
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Because it’s named after me, so I get a discount of free.
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pft
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Hey, maybe if you changed your name to Bitter Ben you could get a discount too.
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Hmmm..that’s something to think about.
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I have the patent pending though, so you would need to pay me a million AMERICAN dollars for getting the name change.
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No
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Alright no bitter free health care for you.
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>(
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That emoji looks really bitter.
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That’s what you want right?
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Yep. I need more that look bitter. Like that Bacon dude I put on my bacon post.
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Ha!
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We should all be more like bitter bacon guy.
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Yes!
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You know, act like a pig.
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Ha!
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Which I do a lot.
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Bitter laughing of course right?
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Bitter laughing yes.
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Good
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Haha you do not understand how nervous this made me just reading it! I’m glad you’ve never been seriously injured in an accident!
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I have had quite a few close calls. That one that was going around the corner almost stopped my heart. There were medians on both sides and a car right smack dab in our lane with nowhere to go, so if I didn’t go over the median and smack the sign, I would have Tboned him. No damage even happened to my car. It was crazy.
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That’s pretty lucky!! Well, that your car wasn’t damaged, not the car being in your lane part.
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It was quite a miracle for sure. I thought the sign would fall on my car and that the bumper would be damaged, but we had anti lock breaks and a rubber bumper. I guess I was saved for a reason. Probably so I could bitter blog about it 20 years later.
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Hahaha it’s destiny!
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So, on the path toward my workplace is this little disaster of a traffic circle. It’s more of a traffic kidney bean, actually, with traffic coming from two major surface roads and from right off the Interstate, with a cross road that’s just a moderately busy city street, and a couple of cross-cuts where you can do a U-turn or just go across the center of the kidney bean to get somewhere slightly different. All it’s missing is a sign, “HOST YOUR TRAFFIC ACCIDENT HERE”. And on one corner/curve of this traffic kidney bean is, I swear, an auto parts store. So someone knows how to locate their business correctly.
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You gotta love the city engineers plans. Sometimes I just wonder what the heck they are thinking.
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So, like, I mean, ummm, what sports car do you think you fit into, O bitterest of Bens?
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Nissan 300Z used to be my car of choice. Now I think it would be the 370Z?
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I learned to drive a stick in my ancient Baja bug. The darn thing had no reverse and I had to stand in the driver’s doorway guiding it with the steering wheel while I pushed it backward out of parking spaces. Thank goodness it was Baja’d out – it was quite lightweight and easily moved. But imagine seeing a woman quite pregnant pushing her car out of a parking space! That would be me. 😀
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I learned in one of the four Volkswagen Beetles. I guess my parents thought I needed a trashy beetle to work on. Little did they know I was a prodigy.
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A pro in the driving compartment, eh? Perhaps you could teach me how to NOT hit cars as I try to reverse out of a car parking space? Eeeek! I admit it, I’m a terrible driver and an even more terrible PARKER!
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Not really an expert, just been doing it for a long time and never been in an accident that was my fault. But I do know how to drive a manual and that is something a lot of people can’t do. Parking is just a pain in the butt. Too little space and too many people pulling out all the time.
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I don’t know why, but I feel like I could watch that second moving picture all day.
Also, totally random but I saw where you said something about one of your followers maybe being a cop or something. Husband is talking about that. Had a big-up here say something about how his forearm tattoos could be overlooked (long sleeves). Kind of ridiculous that cops can’t have tattoos on their arms, but hey, whatevs. Anyway, just throwing that out there.
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So he’s thinking about being a cop? That sounds awesome. And you don’t have to do it in KY. I bet there are a lot of places that don’t mind that. I don’t actually know if I have a cop follower but I assume there is at least one. Just guessin.
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We’ve had a bad go of it lately in the traffic accident department, eh? I’m glad to know we don’t need to worry about you getting from point A to point B.
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I don’t know how it is in Tacoma, but around here it’s been construction and lots of accidents too. We went to the Tulip thing a couple of weeks ago and on a Sunday, there was a jam in Everett. Why?
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Some girl died after she drove off of an overpass and her car landed below onto I-5…15 Mike back up on a Friday. Ugh. And in Bonney Lake a family died when the construction barrier fell on their truck. Ugh. So sad.
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I hate to hear things like that. But it worse when someone is drinking or whatever and the innocent ones die. Just seems people just need to stop being in such a hurry.
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I hope you are knocking on wood, throwing salt over your shoulder, rubbing a faux rabbit foot, etc. It appears as though you just challenged fate to a smack down. I wonder what the over/under is on that fight… 😜
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Of course I did. Like I’m ever going to post about something without considering all the possibilities. Now if you will excuse me, I need to go get some salt.
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I would see about buying in bulk…
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I just knocked on some wood. And drove around very carelessly at lunch. I should be okay right?
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Totally.
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Oh my, I am such a terrible driver. It’s embarrassing. But it could also be because I need glasses…so there’s that. One time I tried to take my sweater off while driving on the highway, but only managed to get it halfway off. I drove for like 20 minutes with my sweater trapped behind my neck and still on my arms until I finally gave in and pulled over haha. I’m a stunt driver too!
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I am always taking sweaters/coats off when I drive. That doesn’t make you dangerous, that makes you skilled. And the only dangerous driver is one that actually gets in an accident.
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Sorry about the grammar in that paragraph! I hit reply on accident. My grammar and my driving are trying to compete for the thing I’m worst at!
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Grammar? What bad grammar? If I had any kind of grammar skill, I maybe would have noticed something, but I don’t so of course, I didn’t. Sounds like this comment you did better?
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I’m the exact opposite. Whoever passed me on my driving test is either insane or my dad paid him. after having my license for 3 years I remember getting on the freeway one day. I looked over my shoulder and having this epiphany about the blind spot. It finally clicked. Prior to that I just looked over my shoulder as some kind of getting on the freeway dance move. I had no idea what I was looking for! Lol
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I’m thinking my daughter will not inherit my skills, so it will be interesting how I teach her. While my son won’t be as prodigious as me, he is learning at a young age what the pedals and gears and etc. are for. He may make a Gardner driving master someday.
I love that you figured out the blind spot thing later in life. I anticipate the actions of people like you 4 steps in advance, so I’m good.
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HAHAHA this is awesome! Thanks for the morning laugh
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It took many years of narrow escapes to show my prodigiousness. The badness of Seattle driver’s in snow has extended my skills.
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Ben, your true test would be driving in Indian conditions – our roads, our indiscipline, our hetergenous wheeled (mechanised and un-) vehicles! Try it one day, and your bitterness at being a prodigy would be relaced by real pride, I promise you! 🙂
And as usual, a good, easy read!
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I’ve seen the Indian roads on Amazing Race and a few other programs, but I look forward to someday proving my bitter driving skills on the roads of India!
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Bitter Ben, a potential race car driver?? And here I thought the only think you knew about braking fast was breakfasting.
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No, not a race car driver, just an accident avoider. But only by the slimmest of margins. I like to keep it interesting like I said, because I’m so far above everyone else.
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Okay, you know whatever, race car driver, accident avoider, I just really wanted to get in the whole brake fast and breakfast thing in but it seems to have been lost on you!
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Of course I was going to ignore the clever break fast thing. Now I’m going to have to go and read it again, because I was ignoring it earlier. So bitter!
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I think I make myself pretty difficult to ignore.
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That is about the truest thing you’ve ever said. I’m totally not that way at all.
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Huh? Who is this again?
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The Bitter Ben. The one that is ignored.
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Wait…who?
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You know that one guy that was in the one thing.
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Oh yeah, THAT guy!!
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