Driver’s Ed classes these days aren’t teaching our kids one of the most valuable skills:
How to be a little ass-backwards every now and then…
“Back dat a$$ up, yo!” I heard from behind me.
“Gladly!” I hollered back before promptly backing ‘dat a$$’ up.
Was I being cat-called in a night club?
Who, me? Hah. No.
Was I being hit on by a female construction worker as a sashayed down the street?
Well, I could see that happening…but, no. That’s not the scenario I’m describing herewithin.
Was I trying to get a stubborn donkey to move ass-first away from a precious fruit tree he was attempting to devour?
Sadly, no, I was not literally backing a literal ass up.
Nope, the truth is much more boring and probably gonna disappoint you: my brother and I were merely hooking up our dad’s farm truck to whatever trailer we needed to pull that day. You know, just routine agricultural farm-type stuff that you tend to do when you are an indentured servant grow up on a farm.
In fact, the uber-interesting anecdote that you indubitably thought I was inevitably about to share? Doesn’t even exist. I mean, a situation in which I, aided by another agricultural laborer, backed up a pickup or a semi or a tractor or a combine harvester upon their request definitely happened on many occasions. That part was 1100% true.
But even beyond your typical back-up of 5-25 feet, there were multiple instances of throwing that beast in reverse and scootin’ booty-first for much longer distances…I think I may have had to do so for a quarter-mile at least once. If I remember correctly, that involved a copious amount of mud and what I had thought was just another Kansan back road–because face it, it don’t make you racist to admit that ‘they all kinda look the same’–but just turned out to be the informal irrigation ditch of a neighbor’s field.
Ok, so I’m straying from the point here. The point is that one does a butt-ton of backing up on the farm, so much so that eventually it’s just one boring back-up blurring into the next. And not to #HumbleBrag or anything, but I got pretty darn good at it. In fact, sometimes I would just drive backwards on purpose–or as the farm-folk tend to say, ‘for sh*ts and giggles.’ (Pro Tip: you can even drive backwards at great length while looking straight ahead if you can master the art of imagining time is running backwards.)
Alas, if only such a hard-earned life skill had any practical application at all. Alas…
“Go! Go! Go! One block! Two blocks! Three blocks! Oh, you got this bro! Keep going!”
I know many of you out there went to some sort of after-party once your Senior Prom ended, and I’m sure that many of you got similar encouragement–though you were probably being admonished to chug chug chug some alcoholic beverage.
After my Senior Prom? Well, me and my impromptu crew that included The Bard (from The Crazy-Ass Summer of ’99 fame), my blind prom date/future potential ex-sister-in-law/The Bard’s future ex-girlfriend, Brandi, and my cheer-leading second cousin, Whitney (whom I believe was who set me up with Brandi in the first place), we either didn’t have access to alcohol or just realized that none of us actually imbibed booze, so partying wasn’t really on our post-prom agenda. Also, I don’t know if we were even invited to the cool-kids’ after party. Not that we wanted to go anyways. But I digress.
The sad truth is that when you live in a po-dunk Kansas town with a population of maybe 400, there isn’t a whole lot of legal ways for a group of teens to entertain themselves…
…
At this point, I’m assuming that you can see where this is going–bonus points if you did it without looking in the rear-view mirror.
That’s right: we drove up and down every last street in Rolla backwards. Call me a show off if you will, but I need to remind you that’s only *checks math* about 140 hamlet blocks (as opposed to the much larger ‘city blocks’)…and I was pretty skilled, so we were probably rollin’ upwards (er, I mean ‘backwards’) of -20 mph. Impressive, yes, but only mildly so.
Sadly, we never got pulled over–we were disappointed we didn’t get to see how the local law enforcement would react to such light-hearted, totally legal,1I’m assuming it’s illegal, but Google is having a hard time convincing me that we would have been actually breaking any laws (on account of there being zero other people on the road). Most answers to ‘is it illegal to drive backwards in Kansas’ don’t really give answers that are backed up by any specific law or statute. and not dangerous at all shenanigans. My hypothesis is that the lone cop in town musta been busy bustin’ up the cool kids’ drunken orgy…
“Dude…can we stop and get some Hardee’s before the concert? I’m indubitably going to smoke some pot (and then offer you some and then call you a nerd when you turn me down), and I wanna stay a step ahead of the munchies,” pined Passenger #1.
“But we’re going to be late! There’s no time!” fretted Passenger #2.
“Quick! Through the drive-through!” Passenger #3 piped up.
“The drive-thru, you say? You wanna see a magic trick?” I grinned.
Back in the summer after my first year of grad school, me and a car-full of other physics grad students decided to take in a Nine Inch Nails concert in nearby Raleigh, and somehow I ended up being the one to drive us all there.
Now, ‘me driving’ and ‘one of my soon-to-be-stoned passengers jonesing for some greasy grub’ should be two totally unrelated details, but not in my universe-oh ho, no no no!
Do I look like a guy who would drive a car that can handle your average fast food restaurant drive-thru? No! I look like a guy who wouldn’t bother fixing the motor on his driver’s window more than once! When you’re relatively poor and spend over $100 for some hack mechanic to fix your window, for it to only stop working a week later, why the heck would you bother gambling your money on a second attempt?
No, my friend, I look like the type of guy who adapts out of cheapness. Windows that roll down? Pfft! That’s a luxury for the pampered ultra-rich, in my humble opinion! Who needs ’em? (Windows that roll down or the ultra-rich, amiright?)
Also, another luxury reserved for the ultra-rich? The ability to obtain nourishment when one is lonely, hungry, and in a hurry. You know, on account of not being able to properly interact with drive-thru windows and what-not.
But guess what? If you’re not lonely, and merely hungry and in a hurry…well, that’s a solvable problem–with only one solution!
“The hell you doin’ dude? You’re gonna wreck!” freaked Passenger #4.
“We’re all gonna die!” Passenger #2 screamed.
“Fear not, I’m a professional!” I assured the 4 souls that had entrusted their lives to me, as I pulled one of these moves right into the drive-thru lane:
Ok, so maybe it wasn’t that thrilling of a move, but nevertheless, thanks to my teenage-hood on the farm, I was able to make sure my friends got fed in a timely manner, with the added bonus of seeing the ‘WTF?!?’ look on the Hardee’s employees’ faces as we all non-chalantly cruised ass-first up to the window…
Um…yeah. So those are my totally cool and actually true stories about driving backwards. There’s no real point here, in case you were hoping for some grand ‘moral of the story’, except maybe that you never know when your farming experience might translate into something useful in the civilized world.
The irony of all this is that, in my elder years I have somehow become really bad at driving backwards. That, and parking. I’ve had the unpleasant experience in the last year or so of realizing that I suck at parking. I almost never get my vehicle parallel to the lines in the parking lot. It’s ----- embarrassing. Maybe that’s what I get for being such a show-off, flaunting my reversible skills in my youth…
Ah, to be young and this guy2Source: https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a21095190/this-driver-does-an-entire-commute-driving-backwards-and-its-mesmerizing/ again…
Content created on: 24/25 March 2023 (Fri/Sat)
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