A flaw in the plan

[fbhjr]

I’ve discovered a flaw in my plan to get the car its own learners permit
and drive me around.
I can’t get it to hold the pen to fill out the form.
I’ll have to see if they let you do it verbally.  Of course it would have
to be Morse code in car honks, which may be another problem.

Anyhow, it was 16 years ago today that my wife picked up the car from the
dealership and brought it home.

I remember it very clearly.

gilden went with us to the dealership when she picked it up.
It was early enough in Saturn’s history that they took pictures of everyone
who bought one and had them posted on the wall of the dealership.
My wife picked up the car, tried to avoid having her picture taken, and
then drove it off the lot for the first time.
gilden and I followed in my Saturn.  (The first one that was a
blue SL1.)
As we took the turn from 190S to 290E, my wife went around the curve at
about 60.
“Wow, she must really be enjoying that sports coupe,” I said.
When we got home she told me that the car just wouldn’t go any slower than
that.
That evening we went to a pool party a few towns over, and my wife let me
drive the new car home.  As I had just been swimming, I didn’t bother to
put on my shoes first.
“Why is the gas pedal fuzzy?” I asked as I put my foot on it.
It turned out that the floor mats were up over the gas pedal.  So, the
reason it drove so fast was it was always being given the gas.
I’ve heard that some of the Toyota problems of the past few years were
blamed on something similar.  Since I’ve seen floor mats do it, I can
believe it.

Comments

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

Wow. I never heard that story.

That is scary with the floor mats.

my toyota's floor mat would move into places and would be annoying. Eventually I worked kinks and creases into it to hold it in place fairly well. The easier solution would have been to remove the mat entirely. To this day I don't know my reasoning for just squishing the mat in place.

but thankfully never had a problem with the gas or break pedal.

I think there was one time my shoelace got snagged on the brake pedal, which was...interesting...for a few moments. But I got untangled quickly enough.