Driven

It has been an oft-observed phenomenon in our marriage that, if Michelle should scoff at faults of mine, or criticize some shortcoming or failure which mars a task I have performed, she will soon herself screw up in a similar fashion.

A simple example, for the sake of clarification, might be my habit of totaling up the checkbook without the aid of a calculator. No doubt based in foolish pride, this endearing mathematical mannerism of mine has occasionally resulted in our balances being off by, say, a few hundred dollars here or a couple mortgage payments there. At times like these Michelle will bemoan her fate and good-naturedly ridicule my lack of ability to perform simple arithmetic.

That is, she used to, until it became obvious that whenever she did so, without fail, she would be found guilty of an even more glaring and simplistic computative error before the day was out.

The point is, lately she has been slightly more critical of my driving than usual. It was an issue from time to time in the early days of our marital bliss, but as couples often do we reached an uneasy truce which would be broken only occasionally by a testy conversation about safe following distances or the finer points of cruise control use.

A short, tangential discussion of my driving is, perhaps, in order, even if not particularly in demand. Michelle would not argue that I am a good driver, but a good driver who sometimes lacks tolerance for less good drivers. It could be said that I have an undying optimism that bad drivers can change their ways, but a less kind assessment would state that I have an unpleasant and foolish desire to let people know when they've annoyed me.

I drive ten miles over the speed limit, and I am not annoyed by people who drive the speed limit. Nor am I annoyed by those who drive 20 over. My personal challenge to you is to drive whatever speed you like, without judging those who choose a different pace. A hypocritical statement, perhaps, since I hand out judgments left and right for other faults. Be that as it may, the only tendency of mine which really bothers Michelle is how slow I am to slam on my brakes if someone cuts in front of me. I want them to know they cut me off.

You may be wondering why Michelle doesn't just drive instead, since I have no problem with her driving or, indeed, anything else about her at all. Join the club. I still always drive. But on Wednesday, for whatever reason, she was in the driver's seat as we headed to a friend's place for dinner. She doesn't know what she ran over, but she saw it just briefly enough to think it might have been a dead animal, which must be why she didn't try too hard to avoid it, and why we suddenly found ourselves with an impressively flat tire. She doesn't still think it might have been a dead animal.

I didn't mind changing the tire on the side of 694 as traffic whizzed past my hunched shoulders; I found it quite exhilarating and it gave me a sense of accomplishment (I'm a 5). But I'm thinking it bought me at least a few weeks of criticism-free driving, and that can't be bad either.

Having said all this, I'm feeling a little bad for embarrassing Michelle, and I've decided to finally get to work on a series of posts which she's always said I should write: How to be a Perfect Husband. So stay tuned.