Auto-phobia

I am scared of cars. There.  I’ve done said it.
Rip up my old UAW and IUE-CWA union cards, I am afraid of automobiles.

To be precise, I don’t like to ride in cars.   I will do anything to get out of it… piss off my family, come up with all sorts of excuses of why I can’t go somewhere, when the truth to be told is that the mere idea of riding inside an automobile to get to Point A from Point B raises up a dread so fierce inside of me that I am fighting down panic until I figure out a way to get out of going.

There really is no good reason to have this phobia. Driving was always much better than riding, but I still did not like it. What kid drops out of Driver’s Ed? Waits two years before taking it again? I didn’t get my license until I was 18. Hey, at least I never buried a car in the back yard.  My great grandfather did that; dug a big hole and buried his Model T Ford out on the old farm.  He had auto-phobia, too.  Or, maybe it was a train phobia?  Word has it that he refused to drive over railroad tracks. I don’t know why he buried it.  Maybe he couldn’t keep it running?

CORRECTION: I got my great-grandfather’s confused. My dad’s paternal grandfather refused to drive over railroad tracks. His maternal grandfather buried a “Star Car” – not a Model T Ford.

I never trusted cars to keep running.  I was always afraid they would break down and leave me stranded.  Some did.  Even the convertible I bought thinking what I needed was a “fun” car to make driving more pleasurable broke down on me when I took it out of town.  Twice it left me stuck out on the highway, waiting on tow trucks to haul it in for repairs.  Around town, I was fine… drop the top and crank the tunes, oh yeah… as long I didn’t go more than five miles out of town, I could drive just fine.  People teased me about that convertible, told me that I only like to drive on sunny days when it was nice enough to drop the top.  They were right.  They just did not know the extent of my auto-phobia.

Should I tell the worst of it?

Now this will make me sound plum crazy.   Spirits roam the highways.  They are not all good.  I have seen the shadow of death. There is no other way to describe a black shapeless cloud that floats with a total disregard to air patterns.  When you see it, you know what it is.

In town, I did not have those problems.  The only spirit that talked to me while I was driving in town was the priest who shot himself in the rectory. He said, “pray for me, I’ve been shot” just after I parked on the side street by the post office in Warren.

1.5 x 6.5 inches… yes, a bookmark.

My last car was an almost new Chrysler PT Cruiser.  Maybe I should have bought another convertible, but I bought a hard top in Cool Vanilla thinking it would be a “fun” car, too.  It had ye about 14,000 miles on it when I got it.  Three years later, when I had to give up driving due to disability, it still had less than 20,000 but then that last year really doesn’t count as I only put gas in the tank maybe two or three times.  It sat in the garage so long that mice chewed through the wiring.

Funny thing is, I miss driving. I didn’t want to give up driving because I always felt safer driving myself than I did riding with anyone else. I have absolutely no problem with buses, trains, and even airplanes.
I just HATE riding in cars.

Do you have any weird phobias?

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