Saturday, February 17, 2007

Ha.

Pretty Lady is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the sort of pseudo-lady who could be said to be Jumped Up on Testosterone. She is not Dyke-ish. She is only incidentally Bad-Ass. And she invests little to none of her precious energy, getting worked up about trivial, superficial issues such as Cars with Big Engines.

But it gives her a certain Wry Amusement when she turns into her block, and espies some Dude in a brand-new, four-door, extended-cab SUV, decorated with silver racing flames, attempting to pull into a large parking space, on the side of the road where the snowplows have piled up great obstructive mounds of slushy sleety snow, which have transformed over the days into dense, gray, slippery, treacherous ice. It provides her with a certain Quiet Glee, as she watches the Dude in the shiny SUV backing up again, and again, and again.

And it gives her a deep, glowy inner satisfaction when she pauses at the slushy, obstructed parking space two slots ahead of the Dude, puts her old, 210K workhorse of a transcontinental Pathfinder into 4-wheel mode, and pulls into the space with minimal distress, as, from her rear-view mirror, she watches the Dude give up in frustration, and speed off into the frigid darkness, in search of a less-challenging parking space.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like cars with big engines and big speed. Watch those clowns speed and end in a fiery life claiming crash. Then just wait for the smoke to clear....

Makes for a cool movie, no?

Pretty Lady said...

No.

Anonymous said...

When I drove a pick-up truck, I had some similar parking triumphs. It was especially satisfying to master a difficult parallel parking situation in a stick-shift truck on a very steep hill in San Francisco, then step delicately out of my truck in my short skirt, high heels and plunging neckline (this was in my babelicious youth, you understand) and go along my merry way.

A friend of mine, a very petite, pretty "feminine" woman, was standing on a corner waiting for the red light to change when one of those extended front-wheel, totally souped up, macho, badass motorcycles pulled up. The rider looked at her and revved his engines cockily. As he was very close to her (and this was before the age of mandatory helmets) he may have heard her say, gently and with a sympathetic, understanding look on her face, "you must have a very small penis."

Pretty Lady said...

Oriane, I drove a stick-shift in San Francisco for nine years. No wonder we hit it off. I maintain that a person does not really know how to drive until one can parallel-park a stick shift, backwards, on a steep hill.

It is a terrible pity I did not know you, back then. You could have borrowed my car when I went on vacation. None of my girlfriends at the time were capable of moving it from one side of the street to the other. Pathetic.

Anonymous said...

I agree with all of the above. But to
I maintain that a person does not really know how to drive until one can parallel-park a stick shift, backwards, on a steep hill
I would add:
under the influence of alcohol and/or other mind-altering substances.

Pretty Lady said...

Check. We Texas girls drive better when we're drunk; it just means we pay closer attention.

mitzibel said...

Forget horsepower and four-wheel-drive; I just love living in a college town where half the population has been driving for three years or less, and they're all in tiny fiberglass matchbox cars or hulking fiberglass SUVs, sliding merrily off into the ditch as I plow through the ice and snow in my 1-ton Vovlo sedan, laughing quite unpleasantly.

Anonymous said...

Hey Pretty Lady.

Cintra here, just having to say it: if you've never driven a two-door with eight cylinders, you'd never know just how much it might make you forget all about sex for a while. Everybody needs to rent a Mustang once a year. Life needs some roar on the floor.
Nice blog, btw.
xxx
cintra wilson

Pretty Lady said...

Cintra, you are my Heroine, and have been since--well, I shall maintain a certain discretion. I shall rent a Mustang immediately, and then Die Happy.