420. Stick Shift

A listener shares that driving a manual transmission car always makes him feel okay.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

NORA: I’m Nora McInerny, and this is It’s Going to be OK. Every day we are here not to tell you that everything is going to be okay, but to remind you of the okay that exists in the world. So even when things are grim, you can be reminded that there is still goodness around you. We get a lot of okay things from all of you, which makes our little world go round.

And we got an okay thing today from a listener named Andy who sent us this email about his love. of the stick shift.

My OK thing is driving a car with a manual transmission. You know – a stick shift! Now first let me get something out of the way… I am not driving a fancy-schmancy sports car that will press you back into your seat as you pop the clutch and peel out of that traffic light that just turned green. No, I drive a little econo-car that offered a manual transmission as a fuel-saving option when I bought it. And I do get great MPG’s! But I’m the guy you’re stuck behind coming out of that green light saying to yourself, “C’mon buddy! I’d like to clear the intersection before the light turns red again”. My car gets me wherever I need to go, just not with a lot of envious stares.

When I was learning to drive, my parents had 2 cars – a boring 4-door sedan with an automatic transmission, and a manual transmission Volkswagen mini-bus. The original hippie van! And let me tell you, I really wanted to learn to drive that groovy van! You know, to impress the chicks! My father was my primary teacher when I was learning how to drive a stick-shift. And he was (of course) a perfectionist – there was his way of doing things, and all the other ways, which were just plain WRONG. Learning to manage the clutch and choosing which gear you should be using under his eagle-eye was enough to make you stress-sweat just thinking about it. And the VW van was not the most forgiving of vehicles – it steered like, well, a big box on wheels where you sat mere inches from the front bumper (I learned that the VW Bus had the same wheelbase as the VW Bug, so there was that!) And the engine and transmission were in the rear, while the stickshift was way up in the front… the linkages and whatever else connected the two ends had a lot of opportunity to mis-interpret the intent of the novice driver about the gear he was intending to engage. After many days of practice in a parking lot, and lots of stalls and jerky starts, I was finally ready to go out on the road. I was nervous as heck, but what a feeling of accomplishment!

I still enjoy driving a manual transmission – it just makes me feel more engaged with the driving. I’m not a person who loves driving, but I don’t hate it either. I even like the challenge of stopping on a hill and getting going again without stalling out or rolling back into the person behind you. Being able to pick the correct gear in stop-and-go city traffic without even thinking about it, or being able to down-shift going around a corner to slow down without engaging the brakes, I feel like I’m a famous race driver (see disclaimer above about the econo-car). Sadly, my car is nearing the end of its useful life, and my wife, who, although she can drive a manual transmission, prefers not to. So, to keep the peace, I’ll be replacing my stick with something automatic, which makes me a little sad. But the knowledge that I could at a moment’s notice jump into a car with any type of transmission and drive it makes me know, somehow, it’s going to be OK.

I’m Nora McInerny. This is, it’s going to be okay. We love hearing your okay things. You can email them to us ig [email protected]. You can call and leave a voicemail. We got a new number, 5 0 2 3 8 8 oh KAY.
Check out The Feelings and Co YouTube channel. There’s some videos with more okay stuff, and it’s also a place where I interview authors and talk about all sorts of stuff.
Feelings and Co is a bunch of people who love feelings, including Claire McInerney, Marcel Maleki, Grace Berry.And Amanda Romani mixed this episode and our theme music is by Secret Audio.