An odd thing

Well, maybe it wasn't odd. What do you think?

I drove to the station as normal to pick the children up from the train, and pulled up behind a woman driving a big silver Merc. He who I presumed was her husband walked up to the car and then she got out of the driving seat so he could drive.

Is she not allowed to drive him? Is he one of these men for whom being driven by a, gasp, woman, is a huge dent to his virility?

It has never, not once, occurred to me to get out and let my OH drive when I pick him up from the station (not that it happens often). I might I suppose if I had a bad back and had struggled, but she skipped out like a lamb - a middle aged lamb, but a lamb nevertheless. While I drove home with my children, silent with sulks for quite different reasons but at least it made for a peaceful drive home, I tried to think of sensible reasons why one would give up one's driving seat.

Maybe, as I said, the back was bad, the feet arthritic. Maybe she hates driving and is only too glad to have someone else do it: maybe he does this for her even though he's tired from his commute. Or maybe not.

Comments

Unknown said…
I could be that he enjoys driving, and as she has the use of the car all day, she's happy to let him drive home from the station.
It could also be that he's a poor passenger - a back seat driver - and it's less trying for both of them if he drives when they're both in the car.

I was amused by a motorbike couple I saw once. The big strapping lad started up the big bike, took it off the stand, then held it while his petite girlfriend got on the driver's seat. He got up behind her and she drove the bike away.
Juxtabook said…
I do this - always give up the driving seat to my husband (my working only part-time, part house-husband husband!). I hate driving and despite being only 36 I have a lot of joint pain. You probably couldn't see anything wrong with me to look at though. Reversing is murder because of neck problems for example. I never thought people might think, "Poor down trodden woman with humourless husband", if they saw us swap places. I shall have to look carefully about me next time we swap seats!
Jane Badger said…
I suppose a lot of my amazement is my perception of the situation - I have always been fiercely independent, as those poor souls who used, in my single days, to offer to walk me home only to be met with incredulous fury will testify. I thought I'd got kinder with age, but obviously old ways of thought lie deep....

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