Women and Large Cars

Driving a large car can come with a few inconveniences, especially for women. For starters, when you pull into a parking lot where you need to take a ticket at the entrance, reaching the ticket machine can be surprisingly tricky. The Panamera’s doors are thick, so even if you pull up as close as you can to the mirror, the ticket may still be out of reach. And if there isn’t enough room to open the door, I’ve sometimes unfastened my seat belt, kept my right foot just barely on the brake, lifted myself off the seat, and leaned over with a grunt to grab the ticket.

Sometimes I still couldn’t reach it and had to lean almost halfway out of the car. I’m sure the drivers behind me were thinking, “She’s driving a big car, but she looks so ridiculous…” (-_-)

I can live with what other people think, but it’s dangerous if my foot slips off the brake. So now, in that situation, I put the car in Park, get out, and collect the ticket.

How to Say Thank You in Style

Another challenge with a large car is when you meet an oncoming vehicle on a narrow road and one of you has to wait for the other to pass. Finding a good way to say thank you can be awkward. Honking would work if I could do it smoothly, but I get flustered. More than once, I’ve pressed the horn and nothing happened, then pounded on the steering wheel until the other car had already passed (-_-)

But if I press too hard, the horn blares: “BEEP!” Then, even though the other driver has kindly let me through, I come across like I’m angrily honking at them.

After much thought, I went through a phase of thinking, “A wave is the best way to thank an oncoming driver.” I’d seen stylish ladies in sunglasses give a casual, effortless wave, and I wanted to do the same. But when I tried it, I realized it was surprisingly hard…

If I lift my hand too far from the steering wheel, it looks like I’m sweeping aside a noren curtain and calling out,

“Hey, boss! Got room for one more?”

If I keep my wrist resting on the wheel, the gesture is so small that no one can tell what I’m doing. And if I open my hand too wide, it looks like I’m saying,

“Stop! Don’t come any closer!”

—which could easily give the other driver the wrong idea. Even holding my fingers neatly together looks stiff and unnatural. What’s a driver to do? These days, I’ve settled on:

Bowing my head repeatedly while saying, “Thank you so much!”

That should make it clear to the other driver that I’m expressing my gratitude. Still, even in a lovely car like the Panamera, I must look like a rather timid—and comical—driver.

I wonder what everyone else does about parking-lot tickets and thanking oncoming drivers. For now, I’m still looking for solutions to both dilemmas.