button where my thumb should be and press. Still nothing. I press the brake lightly and the button simultaneously and the gear shift jumps several positions. I try it again, putting it back in Park so that I can do it more slowly and make sure I will end up in Drive and not in Reverse or whatever else those other positions perform. What is 1 and 2, I wonder, and Neutral? I don’t remember these from the driver’s manual and I hope with fervor they aren’t necessary to get me to the Laundromat. I edge incredibly slowly away from the curb and even remember to signal, although there is no one behind me or in front of me to see it.
“Stop watching me, cat,” I mutter, as I pull the Beast into the street. “You’re making me nervous.”
The whole city seems deserted and whenever I do pass someone I try to look as casual and confident as possible, though I am sweating with nerves and driving at such a crawl I know I probably could have walked it quicker. With each turn or stop I make, I grow a little more confident and by the time I am halfway to my destination, I am calm enough to turn on the compact disk I brought with me. Since I am usually in charge of the music as a passenger in the Blue Beast, I can find the controls without even looking at them, and I turn up Fleetwood Mac good and loud. I also feel confident enough now to pry my let my left hand off the steering wheel and dangle my arm out the window as I drive, and I am doing quite well at this driving thing, I think. I am even feeling a bit smug, maybe even perky, until I get to the street my destinations are on and then I begin to panic a bit; the parking situation is less than ideal. The Laundromat is recessed in the middle of an old brick and mortar building that still has a huge wrap-around sign advertising Woolworths even though there is no Woolworths to be found. The Laundromat itself is being hugged, nearly squeezed to death by the look of it, by a sub sandwich shop on one side and a beauty parlor on the other. Upstairs, two stories high, are what appear to be office buildings or maybe cheap apartments. I cruise by very slowly, trying to determine by craning my neck, if there is an alley or something behind the building that can be used as an alternative to parking besides the blasted street. No such luck for me, and I sigh, as I turn the Blue Beast around the block and try to prepare myself for parallel parking.
I bite my lip and crawl to a stop in front of the spot that looks the most available: a space between a pickup truck and a van that looks large enough for a tank, yet still too small to wriggle the Beast into properly. I wipe my sweaty palms on my skirt and check the rear view mirror the way I’ve seen Israel do. Parallel parking was in the driver’s manual and I do recall reading it, but the head knowledge doesn’t seem to be helping. I put the Beast into Reverse and crank the wheel, but it takes me a full minute to get up enough courage to release the brake and press the gas. Instantly I know I have turned the wheel in the wrong direction as I am edging away from the sidewalk and the parking space instead of into it. I creep back up to my original starting point and try again, this time turning the wheel the other direction and saying a little prayer. It feels like it takes a week, back and forth, back and forth, inches at a time, but I finally get the car where it needs to go. I am feeling quite pleased with myself as I pull two of my laundry baskets out of the car and slam the door shut with my foot.
The bells above the doorway to the Laundromat give a rusty jingle as I enter and my eyes adjust to the dimly lit space. I am the only one here at the moment, although a dryer spins noisily nearby with a pink plastic bin bouncing on top. I pick my washers and deposit my coins which had come from my tip jar at the