It's not really my wifes fault I have white knuckles

when I'm the passenger and she's the driver.

I hardly ever use my own car except to drive to and from the office. That and the odd drive over to Frys Electronics. Apart from that, almost everywhere I go is in my wifes company and we use her car. Which means that most of the time she's the driver and I'm the passenger.

Many's the white knuckle experience and, more than once she's yelled at me to stop back seat driving. This usually happens when she swings out into traffic with a gap that I'd never essay. Of course her car's more powerful than mine; I've learned, with my cars lack of acceleration, to wait for large gaps. Causes the odd fit of apoplexy in the impatient bastard sitting behind me in his F250 but I maintain that if I were to be urged out into traffic the way they'd prefer the ensuing accident would cost them more time than my native caution does.

On the other hand, the most I've ever had to pay to fill the tank was $25 and that was half a year ago at the oil peak. These days a tankful runs to about $13. I sure don't waste the petrol!

Sonya also seems to wander around in the lane rather more than I like. Somehow I seem to be able to drive my car smack dab between the lane markings; she seems to drive as though she's keeping her options open regarding lane choice.

The other day my car was playing up. In the light of earlier comment regarding the lack of power it might seem paradoxical that I noticed it was even more gutless than usual but indubitably it was so. It felt like one cylinder wasn't firing, so we took it to the local garage.

Time was when I'd have had the bonnet up and be tracking down a problem like that myself, but that was thirty or more years ago. I used to do my own car repairs back in the days when, if one were to drop a spanner at the top of the engine, there was a better than even chance it would fall all the way to the ground. Not so these days; have you looked in the average engine compartment lately?

So my wife drove me to work on Monday morning.

They found nothing wrong and it's been running fine since then. They did suggest that perhaps we should swap cars for a couple of days; she drives nowhere farther than a couple of miles during the week and she'd be able to take it back if the problem manifested itself.

So I drove my wifes car on Tuesday. And thus I discovered that her car doesn't drive anything like as straight a line as mine does. It seemed that every second I had to do a steering correction to stay within the lane markers.

Perhaps it's not her fault at all. Well, except for one thing. When I dare to mention it she's not even aware that she's weaving from left to right. At least I noticed it!