Poor Sara!

I swear to God, the woman is a saint.  She should be winning the “my-partner-is-a-pain-in-the-ass-and-I-am-the-picture-of-patience” award any day now.

I’m emotional.

Overly emotional—

Big-time, ranting and raving, tantrum-throwing emotional—

At certain times of the month.

When Sara walked in the door from work yesterday, I accosted her with worries about my blog.

“Only 78 people have read so far today.”  No “hello”—no “how was your day.”

“It’s still early,” she offered in consolation.

“But I had over 200 readers nearly every day last week.”

“Haiti’s not in the news as much this week.” She put down her bag and walked to the frig.

“My writing has gone to hell.  I have nothing else to say.  Yeah, I had a good post on Monday about the stump, but it’s all been down-hill since then.  I have no idea what I’m going to write about for tomorrow.  I planned on doing a graffiti piece as part of my Haitian art series, but I don’t have all the photos yet and I can’t deal with hours trying to upload them this evening.”

“Why don’t you write about your driving?”

“What about my driving!”

“Richard said you hit a parked car as you were pulling out of the office this morning.”

I’m stunned.  Utterly and completely not believing what I’m hearing.

“That’s not possible.  I would have know if I’d hit a car.”

“I’m just telling you what he said.” 

She’s not mad that I may have damaged our car.  She genuinely thinks I should write about this.

And the fact of the matter is, she’s probably right.

I’m not a good driver.  I hate to drive.  I think owning a car is way, way over-rated—especially in a country where the “roads” (if you want to actually dignify them as such) boast craters the size of swimming pools—canyons that could swallow a mid-sized SUV, then take on an economy car for dessert.

But I promised yesterday to emphasize the positive about Port-au-Prince, and this post is not so much about highway maintenance (and streets that double as public toilets), as it is about my pathetic driving and Sara’s pending sainthood.

When I was an undergraduate and drove to visit a friend for the first time at her home, I was so focused on getting there, that at one point the police pulled me over for running three stop signs.

The officer approached my car in disbelief.

“Lady, you just ran three stop signs.  You didn’t even slow down.”

I wanted to justify myself by asserting that, of course, I hadn’t stopped, I was busy counting. (My friend had told me to turn right after the third sign.)  Not exactly the queen of multi-tasking—at least not on the road.

When I was driving from Kentucky to Oklahoma a few years later, I asked my friend in the seat next to me, if the lights on the car were, perhaps, not working properly.  It was just past dusk.

“It just seems so dark!” I insisted.

“That’s probably because you’re still wearing your sunglasses.”

Oops!

So, it’s true.  I’m not the best driver in Port-au-Prince, but I’m also far from the worst, in a place where driving skills may be the worst I’ve encountered on the planet.

Yes, it’s possible I hit a car without noticing—busy as I was trying to prevent the road from swallowing  my vehicle whole).

And, yes, Sara is saintly in her tolerance of both bloggerly rants and driverly mishaps.

But, honestly, what’s up with the stats?

(at certain times of the month)