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The road to ruining my nerves

3 min read

I have a strong tendency to get worked up over situations where I am not comfortable. I have anxiety attacks before public speaking or singing events, talk myself out of going new places alone, and can give myself an upset stomach driving somewhere I’ve never been.

I’m admittedly a work in progress.

Recently, I found myself driving my husband’s large, F-450, dual-wheeled, standard-shift truck while it was loaded with hay. Now, being a farmer’s wife, you might think that this would be a pretty normal occurrence for me, but you would be mistaken.

I CAN drive it, but I prefer not to. I prefer to be able to do things like see the road over the hood and feel confident I’m still on the correct side of the lines while operating my vehicle. I can manage these things, just not as surely as I can when operating my Subaru.

Anxiety notwithstanding, I had to haul hay to a job site, and my Subaru wouldn’t cut it. So, I grabbed the keys for the giant truck and headed to town. My daughter and my dog went with me.

We might have made it five miles down the road before there was suddenly a loud banging coming from the passenger side of the truck. My heart skipped a beat, and I slightly jerked the wheel in the direction of the sound.

My daughter laughed at the expression of abject terror on my face as she pulled her arm back inside the cab. She had, apparently, been tapping the roof of the truck in time to the music on the radio, unaware of how it would cause me to react.

Immediately after I recovered from that noise, a flash of color went whizzing past me on the driver’s side of the truck. Either the speed I was traveling or the swerving I had just completed disturbed the driver behind me, and I was being passed.

My eyes grew even larger as I gasped in alarm from that newly perceived threat. My daughter laughed even harder as I tried to slow my heartbeat and regain control of my breathing. It took a few minutes, but I was able to calm down.

As I continued to drive down the road, my dog became excited over something that he saw or smelled. He tried to climb on my lap to stick his head out the window. I pushed him back into the middle of the seat. His foot scraped up over the gear shift and the knob popped off. (I distinctly remember asking for that to be fixed the last time I drove the truck, but apparently, I’m the only one that it bothers.)

I slowed down, trying to downshift with no indicator knob on top. In fact, I watched the knob rolling around on the floor under my feet while I struggled. Finally, I was able to reach the knob, pop it back into place, and shift properly.

I’m alive to tell the story, so you know I delivered the load and made it back home safely. But before I walked back in the house, I found a tube of glue and affixed the knob back to the gearshift.

And had a talk with both my daughter and my dog, as well.

Laura Zoeller can be reached at zoeller5@verizon.net.

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