Count Down Break Down

Today's post comes from guest author Taylor. Taylor runs the very funny My Older Brothers blog.

I like to consider myself a pretty easy-going person. I don’t usually let things get to me, and I don’t stress about much. But I think whoever invented the digital heart attack called “Distance To Empty” in my car is trying to kill me. It’s the setting on the overhead trip computer that shows you how many miles you have until you run out of gas. I can just hear him talking about it mocking my pain (“Beautiful, isn’t it? It took me half a lifetime to invent it. I’m sure you’ve discovered my deep and abiding interest in pain.”)

My minivan, I mean Corvette, has one of those trip computers. And its main feature is the DTE mileage. It estimates how long you have until you’re empty. Pretty neat, right? Wrong! It would be neat if it was accurate. But it jumps around depending on how hard you stop or how tilted you are when you park. So I can get in my car and see “DTE = 22 miles” and then back out of the driveway and see it plummet immediately to 13 miles. And then it does that accelerated countdown to zero. It doesn’t drop a mile for every mile I drive (because that would actually make sense). Instead, it drops 3 miles every time I pass a gas station. Then it hits zero when I’ve hit that stretch of road without a gas station for 10 miles. So I have to accelerate slower than a golf cart and coast as much as I can without getting hit by another driver. And just to be safe, I turn off my air conditioner and lean forward (I figure every little bit helps).

My wife thinks I’m crazy. She’ll drive on “DTE = 0 miles” for days and laugh maniacally as I squirm in the passenger seat (no, not really). And she’ll accelerate for no reason (“Not to fifty!”) Then she’ll toss the keys to me and say, “Your turn!” It’s like playing gas tank Russian Roulette. It reminds me of a show I watched when I was younger (Weird Science) where one of the main characters has a timer that counts down to his death. Watching the DTE drop to zero is like watching the countdown to my own destruction.

I just miss the good old days when I knew that having an empty tank really meant having an eighth of a tank, and you had to see the needle drop an inch below “E” before worrying. But this countdown business is going to put me in the hospital. I don’t think I’ve never had a panic attack, but I’m pretty sure I know what it feels like now. It’s like being in some kind of Pit of Despair and having 50 years sucked out of my life.

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Smooth Moves

Today's DMT post comes from guest poster Taylor Leach. Taylor is the author of the very funny My Older Brothers blog. For more hilarious stories about Taylor and his "older brother", click here.

When I was in high school, I was a huge dork. I didn’t date, I didn’t go to dances, and I didn’t exercise (which explains the “huge” part). At the age of 16, I got my driving permit, which allowed me to drive as long as an adult was riding shotgun with me. My older brother let me drive one afternoon after school to help me get practice at what he called “real driving.” The only difference between driving and “real driving” was the fact that he didn’t hold me to every standard my parents did. So as long as I didn’t wreck his car, he was cool with whatever speed I was going. He didn’t make me check my mirrors or use my blinkers. And he didn’t care if the radio was on. It was very cool. The wind whipped through my greasy hair, and we laughed the day away, cruising down the main streets arguing about the real words to Eiffel 65’s “Blue (Da Ba Dee)” and loving life. I blame these euphoric feelings for the incident that followed.

We drove past a community park near our house, and I saw the girl at school that I had a crush on. She was jogging in the park about 100 feet ahead of us on the other side of the chain-link fence. Feeling bold and new, basking in my driving freedom, I had my brother lean back, and I waved out his window. I even honked and yelled her name as we approached so she’d see me. This is when several things happen in quick succession. Unbeknownst to me, I was tugging the steering wheel in the direction of my yell. So while the road turned slightly to the left, the car turned slightly to the right. I hit the curb with a thud (deafening crash) and hopped up into the grass next to the fence. My brother, having leaned back to let me shout over him, bounced up and nudged (uppercut) my jaw with his wrist. I then turned (yanked) the wheel back to the left out of instinct and slid (careened) back onto the roadway. I eased (fishtailed) back into my lane and regained control. With an aching (throbbing) jaw and hurt (devastated) pride, I looked in my rear view mirror in time to see the girl of my dreams laughing at me.

There was enough damage to my brother’s car to prevent keeping it a secret from my parents. So I lost my driving privileges, ruined any chance I had with the girl, and spent the rest of the year earning money to repair my brother’s car. My parents drove me to and from work until I left for college.