So I recently got my provisional license and with it I inherited the old family car. A beautiful little Volkswagen golf. I also received a heady dosage of freedom. Yippee! However, quite unfortunately, having a car has not magically made me a less neurotic person. Actually, I now have a whole new bunch of things to freak out about.
Is someone going to steal my car?
(Well probably not since it has an immobiliser and to steal it would in fact require a tow truck.)
Is someone going to scratch my car in a parking lot?
(Admittedly this has already happened to me and wasn't as dire as anticipated, I was mostly just confused.)
Am I going to break the law and lose my license and have to catch buses again?
(Hope not.)
Am I going to crash into something/someone and die?
(I'll get back to you on this one.)
The point is, that I can cope with these new issues, however my father does not necessarily agree. Before I begin with this anecdote, let me clarify that my father did spend 130 hours teaching a very directionally challenged teenage girl (ie. me) how to do unnatural things like reverse parking. This is probably why he is so crazy.
On the weekend I went on a stupidly long drive around the Sutherland Shire in order to film overpasses and other fascinating things like that for my journalism assignment. Before I left dad kindly handed me a 50 and told me to fill the car up with petrol. This seems pretty normal, and I had filled the car up before while on my Ls (under dad's watchful eye of course) so I figured it wasn't a big deal.
Yet somehow it was.
I was attempting to leave the house when my dad asked me to show him how to fill up the petrol tank. Instantly I opened my car door and pulled the little lever that opens the little door to the tank. I then opened it and screwed off the cap. I turned it slightly the wrong way before getting it off, but hey, no dramas.
Dad however, was loving it. "WRONG! YOU TURNED IT THE WRONG WAY!" he told me very enthusiastically. I am used to this kind of thing so I just smiled and finished taking the cap off. I realized I was still being watched expectantly, so with an edge of sarcasm I turned around and grabbed the imaginary petrol pump and turned to put imaginary petrol in my real car. I was exaggeratedly miming my actions when suddenly my dad made to grab the petrol pump out of my hands (realizing about halfway through this action that he couldn't do so and hence stopping with his hands awkwardly in the air).
"WRONG! YOU WOULD HAVE GOTTEN PETROL ALL OVER THE SIDE OF THE CAR AND ALL OVER YOUR SHOES. THAT'S IT! I'LL FILL THE CAR UP WHEN YOU GET HOME SINCE YOU OBVIOUSLY CANNOT."
That's right, I am probably the only person in the whole world who has ever held an imaginary petrol pump incorrectly. I also was given a lecture on the fact that when a pump says diesel on it, then it is not petrol (!!) and therefore putting it in the tank would ruin my engine.
I'll have you know, and I say this with pride in my voice, that I did later fill the car up, with no incident aside from when I got my wallet out of my bag to pay and somehow tangled myself in my bag strap. I suppose that you cannot blame my father for not having the foresight to make me act out an imaginary bag strap.
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