By KARIMI GATIMI
I think men are wired not to relax when a woman is on the driver’s seat. Once, I went to pick a guest from the airport.
He comes from Europe, and he was all chatty and excited about our warm weather... until we got into the car, that is.
“There’s
no taxi?” he exclaimed. “You are the driver?” He looked horrified,
thoroughly confused and about ready to turn back to his cold country.
He
held his breath throughout the drive, kept wiping sweat off his brow,
his lips quivering, I’m sure in fervent prayer. He was, of course, no
longer talking, just gesturing to me to drive on when I attempted small
talk.
I navigated through the Mombasa Road traffic into town, wrestled with our crazy matatu drivers and finally parked at his hotel.
He looked immensely relieved as he offloaded his luggage, and almost sprinted away from my car.
UNWARRANTED ADVICE
Now,
I can imagine this kind of reaction from a man somewhere in remote
Kenya, but surely, from Europe? He has surely seen thousands of female
drivers!
Anyway, hubby does most of
the driving, but there are occasions when I take the wheel, while he
takes the passenger seat. He is a terrible co-driver.
Instead
of sitting there quietly, he tells me when to overtake, give way, take a
short cut, and play ball when a rude driver tries to bully me off my
lane, which always triggers an argument.
My
brother does that too when I happen to give him a lift, and once we get
to our destination, he declares: “We would have arrived an hour ago if I
was the one driving!”
After years of
such annoying co-driver behaviour, lately, I suspect for the sake of
peace, my husband is beginning to sit back and enjoy my (safe and calm)
driving style. So much so that he sings along to music from the car
radio and even makes business calls.
I
have realised something interesting, though. I am becoming the
impatient and commanding co-driver he once was. The other day, as we
were driving home in the evening, I kept issuing unwarranted advice.
“You should have taken that right turn, it’s shorter,” I said five minutes into the drive.
“Keep
to the extreme left lane, it moves faster,” I said ten minutes later,
and fifteen minutes later: “Si you move from the fast lane, since you
are driving at 30kph…”
“Okay, do you
want to take over the driving?” he eventually snapped, exasperated. It
then occurred to me, horror of horrors, that I had turned into my
husband of old!
When we got married,
he liked to eat his fruits separately, not mixed like we do fruit salad.
Of course I preferred fruit salad, and I would argue that fruits looked
and tasted better mixed. Today, I prefer eating a fruit at a time,
while he now swears that fruit salads look and taste better!
SEEING THE LIGHT
My
friend, Fridah, was Catholic, her husband Mike a Seventh Day Adventist.
They could not agree on whose church to adopt, so during the first year
of their marriage they took turns worshipping in each other’s church.
Eventually, Fridah decided to adopt Mike’s church, only for Mike to inform her that he had decided to join her church.
They are Catholics now, but Frida still prays that her husband will “see the light” and rejoin his church.
It
is said that married people tend to look alike as years go by; I think
we get this impression because with time, they start to mirror each
other’s behaviour.
From my
experience, you adopt your spouse’s habits without knowing, and pretty
soon, you start to have really weird conversations, which go something
like: “It’s me who told you that!” “No really, I had told you that
before.”