Getting Manual

Now that Kit Kat is a seasoned driver, I wanted to teach her how to drive a manual transmission. The hardest part about this training was scheduling a time to do it. Kit Kat and I are busy people. I figured we could do it on the weekend. But there are a lot of things going on every weekend.

Kit Kat is keeping in touch with her high school friends who went off to different colleges. She visits her friends on the weekend, sometimes spending the night at a college dorm. Or she is running around with her friends to the movies or out to eat. I watch movies with my bro every weekend. I also pay my bills and do massive yard work each weekend. Kit Kat and I were just not connecting.

I cancelled one of my commitments this weekend. Any I got Kit Kay when she was home. We headed out in my manual transmission pickup truck to learn. At first I drove and let Kit Kat switch the gears for me. We went to the local elementary school. There was nobody there. But the ground was not level. It is easiest to learn on flat ground. So we headed to the park. Too many people were there. We went back to the school.

At first Kit Kat pressed the gas too much when getting into first gear. The tires screeched and we were too fast and too furious. I had her press the gas a lot less. Then the car jerked around and wanted to stall. It is a delicate balance. Kit Kat tried about 6 to 8 times, stopping the car, starting back up again, and repeating. It was tedious because we would get to the bottom of the parking lot. Then we would switch seats, and I would drive us back up to the start of the straightaway.

It is going to take a lot of practice to teach Kit Kat the art of driving stick shift. Perhaps by next summer she will have it down. I told her she only needs to learn. After that, it is fine if she never drives manual transmission. Learning to drive it is like learning to ride a bike. Once you learn, you have the instinct and can pick it up again easily.