Several years ago I was watching The Newlywed Game (don’t mock me; admitting you have a problem is half the battle) and the question posed was this: What is something your spouse thinks they are good at, but really are not?

I’ve never been able to come up with a good answer for Sir Monkeypants, but I knew right away what he’d say about me: my driving. He’s pretty good about not bugging me about it but I know that he, my mother, and FameThrowa all think I’m pretty scary behind the wheel. It’s not like I thought I was an excellent driver but, at the time of the show, I thought I wasn’t that bad. Now I’m forced to admit that they are probably right.

In the past few weeks I’ve gone clean through a red light (unfortunately, with FameThrowa and Sir Monkeypants in the car right behind me as witnesses, which won’t help my driving rep any), failed to pause to look both ways while pulling out of a parking lot (at the end of a dead-end road at 11pm, but still), and routinely followed too close (a known driving problem of mine). At the mall yesterday I got blocked in between a car that was pulling out and a car that was pulling in, causing someone else who wanted out to be trapped, which nearly came to blows. It didn’t really seem like my fault but I do seem to always wind up in situations like this and it makes me wonder.

I think my main problem really is that I space out when driving, and don’t keep my focus on what I’m doing. I get caught up in listening to the radio, or watching the kids in the rear-view mirror to make sure they aren’t getting sun in their eyes, or composing future blog posts, and I don’t pay close enough attention to what is going on around me. Heaven forbid I travel with an adult passenger and start talking to them, as that’s certainly a recipe for a hair-raising ride.

But admitting you have a problem is half the battle, no?