Side Mirrors

I am renowned for hitting things with cars. Despite the fact that I managed to run into my parents' garage with their car twice in one week while I was in high school, scrape a large brick wall while in college and collide with a deer without really realizing it, I have yet to have any major accidents with my car. Or any car. Although I seem to have difficulty avoiding certain stationary objects at slow speeds, I really am an exceptionally cautious (yet admittedly bad) driver. In all of my collisions, I have been driving at speeds under 5 miles per hour, with the exception of the deer, and that animal didn't really do any damage except to tear off the side mirror on my little red car. When moving at such a slow speed a collision hardy feels like a collision. I am always surprised when there is damage . . . it just feels like a minor scrape.

My latest trial involves backing out of our garage, down the driveway (which becomes narrower in the winter because we have to shovel and pile up the snow) and onto the street. I am forever having difficulty. First of all, some blithering idiot built the garage at a slant from the driveway. You must back out of the garage, curve slightly and then travel the length of the house, all on a ridilously narrow little driveway. If I manage not to back up into the middle of house, I find myself nearly stuck in a snowbank. If I avoid the snow bank, I'm scrapping the house with the side mirror. Scrapping the house with the side mirror makes my husband sweat. He gets overly anxious. Especially when he's watching out the living room window, and there I am in the car, inches from the window, smiling a sweet smile at him while backing up. He waves frantically from the window for me to use the brakes. But I know that scraping the house with the side mirror does little damage. I've been doing it all winter, and there are no scars on the house or the side mirror, at least that I've noticed. If I do actually manage to make it past the house, I seem to have a run in with the garbage can near the street. I have knocked it over several times, initiating a splurge of trash that splays across the street. I then have to stop the car, pick up all the trash, put it back in the trash can and explain to my daughter that backing up is sometimes hard for mommies. At least this mommy. This mommy is thankful whenever it snows so that the tracks of her car curving and swerving down the driveway, sometimes into the neighbor's driveway are safely covered before anyone can ask questions.