It's only a car

“See,” Nazy told Jessica as she maneuvered our new car into the tight garage, “we have Park Distance Control. It’s impossible to..”

She was interrupted by a crunch. (Park distance control has sensors at the front and rear, not on the sides.)

Distraught, Nazy called me.

“It’s only a car, Nazy.” I replied. “It can be fixed.”

I hadn’t always been so calm about cars. The very first time Melika got behind the wheel of VAN-GO, our prized Chameleon (purple in the sun, pink in rain) colored Windstar, she attempted to drive 200 meters up the driveway in Hanover. At the 190 meter mark, Melika mixed up the gas and brake pedals. She slammed VAN-GO into the stone wall next to the garage.

As the car bounced back, Darius dove out and ran for cover. Melika, foot firmly on the accelerator rammed the wall again – and again. I can’t say that I calm when Nazy called me in Boston with the news.

In fact, each of the kids had some car problems. Mitra, who grew up in The Netherlands never learned to drive as a teenager. She went to Princeton and then took a job in New York. After several years she moved to Los Angeles where she actually lived without a car for an entire year. When she finally surrendered, Darius offered to help her learn to drive. I remember asking him how it was going.

“Well, Dad,” Darius said. “Mitra doesn’t do some things that most people do when they’re driving.”

“Really?” I asked. “Like what?”

“Like looking out through the front windshield.”

Darius, on the other hand, thought that taking a car into the shop for service was ‘pointless’. He actually put 60,000 miles on the car without ever changing the oil. The point became clear when the engine seized.

Naturally, I’ve never had any car problems. Almost. There was an event on an icy road in Vermont with a Datsun 280Z, an 18 wheeler and a Land Rover.

Nazy wants readers to know that her parking foible did not take place recently.