Chicken

Okay, so I'm a chicken! I wanted to go to the MFA with M but I thought maybe it would be better if I were the one driving. Yeah, she's more familiar with the streets of Boston than me, but she DID fail her driver's license eye exam the last two times and only gets a license renewed because her opthalmologist writes a letter to the DMV so she can continue to drive. She won't drive at night (thank God) but continues to drive otherwise. Yes, she's as careful as she can be about her driving, but when she tells me from across the living room, " I can't see you but I do see a shadow moving in front of the mirror," I figure it's safer for all involved (and innocent bystanders) if I am the one driving while she reads directions to me. The last time I let her be the driver when we went into Boston, she almost scraped along the Jersey barriers on the highway down there and ran over a curb taking a right turn while in Boston. I almost pooped my pants, thinking I was a goner that day! The worst part was, she had no idea that she came so close to making hamburger out of us. I don't want to hurt her feelings, but I do want to live a good long life, so I just told her that I was in love with my Saab and I really enjoyed driving it so I would drive and she could navigate. M has a new car too, but she fell for that excuse this time. I dread when the time comes that I have to tell her how scared I am of her driving. It will hurt her feelings terribly. Last night (still light out) she drove us to the nearby restaurant for dinner and I thought she did fairly well on a very familiar route (5 minutes from her place), except that she didn't see this HUGE pot hole right in front of us that she could have avoided by a mile had she been able to identify it. Wham! Into the pothole with her brand new car. I tried to warn her when I realized she was headed for it, but she bulldozed right toward it and all I could do was hold on tight! It was teeth rattling. She said she only saw a dark spot and thought maybe it was a puddle. I know she's only 63 and she still needs to earn a living, but I'm not so sure that loophole of a doctor writing a note to renew your license is such a good idea. How many more Ms are there out there doing the same kind of driving? I don't want to be around to see anything bad happen because they really can't see well enough to react quickly to avoid accidents. Yikes! I wonder if that's how that 83 year old man who ran into me and then into my car got his license renewed?