It's not often that a 50-year-old balding cheapskate like me has a chance to look cool. But I had my moment to gloat last year when my wife and I went to rent a car along the coast of Crete.
A brash foursome of 90210-good-looking American college jocks barged ahead of us in line, only to be told that all the cars available had manual transmissions. That's the case in most countries of the world other than the U.S., where only 5% of us drive a stick shift. They glanced at each other with uncertainty, and then their fearless leader said cockily, "A stick? Cool man! How hard can it be?"
After waiting patiently, my wife and I finally got the keys to our rental car and headed out to the parking lot. There sat the four pushy princes in their five-speed Fiat, lurching forward a couple feet at a time, then stalling, lurch, stall, lurch, stall....
Smoke rose from the tires. A series of foot-long skid marks trailed off across the parking lot behind their car, looking like the "Tear Here" marks on the bottom half of your electric bill. The lurching motion became so violent at one point that the driver's Smith sunglasses flew off his face and smacked against the windshield.
The cool dudes inside the car were not amused, although the gathering crowd of locals was having a blast watching. As I smoothly slid our rental car into first gear and rolled out of the parking lot, I gave a friendly shoulder shrug to the onlookers and said something in quasi English-Greek, like "Yish! Crazy Americans."
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