Books We Love Insider Blog: #DrivingCompetition

Thursday, August 16, 2018

Driveway chicken by J.C. Kavanagh

Book 2 of the award-winning Twisted Climb series

Driving can be fun. Not like 'Miss Daisy' fun. I mean, fun in a challenging and exhilarating way. Sometimes I drive as if my car is a go-cart. Sometimes I drive like it's a Formula 1 race car (not very often). Sometimes I soldier on like it's a tank. My partner Ian has the same vision for driving.
When we drive home in two separate vehicles, we always play the who's-gonna-park-in-the-garage-first game. It's our little driving competition. Just recently, though, our driving competition took on a more comical approach.
We now play a new game - the Driveway Chicken game.
The idea is still to be the first to park and the first to get out of the car. But now, in the Driveway Chicken game, it's also maneuvering your vehicle to prevent the other one from sliding past and hitting the park-first jackpot.
Picture this: our home is in the country and the driveway is single lane, about 35 metres (100 feet) long. Trees line both sides of the driveway and stone surrounds the front porch. On the north side close to the garage, one-foot wooden sidewalls define a turning cut-out and prevent vehicles from traversing over. The driveway base at the house widens near the turning/parking cut-out and of course there's additional parking in front of the garage.

The other day, Ian was just ahead of me when we got to the driveway entrance. It's our habit to back-in so Ian drove a few metres past the driveway with the intention of launching into reverse before I arrived.
Before he could launch, I drove nose-first into the driveway, accelerated down to the turning cut-out, spun my truck into reverse and began my wheel rotation with my foot on the accelerator.
But there was Ian, his car ramped up on an angle beside my truck. I was sufficiently angled so he couldn't slide past the walls of the cut-out and he couldn't slide over the rock walls near the porch.
I drove forward a few inches, trying to adjust my angle so I would be the first to park.
He drove backward a few inches, looking for a way past my truck.
We continued this zig-zag approach five or six times, like pac-man in a driveway chicken game.
That's when the laughter began.
The ridiculousness of the situation, the intensity of the new game and then the visual of our two vehicles at impossible angles on our driveway struck my funny bone in the most delightful way.
I laughed and laughed and laughed until the tears streamed down my face.
Ian rolled his window down and he too, joined in the laughter.
What a delightful time.
Laughter is good medicine, even in the driveway.