Edgar and I have sort of developed a routine of going to this awesome Mongolian barbecue restaurant in Manhattan Beach every other Saturday afternoon. This place puts most other restaurants in its genre to shame by the fact that it has a much wider selection of vegetables and meat and it's all-you-can-eat at lunch, when usually lunch is a one time trip at these kinds of places. So basically, you know, AWESOME. Edgar's brother and mother decided to join us this weekend, and that is where all hell breaks loose.
The Toyota Long Beach Grand Prix was happening this weekend, and we live in Long Beach about seven blocks away from part of the track, so put two and two together. No parking. However the street in front of our building has meter parking, but with only a two hour limit, so there are always spaces out front. We had his mother and brother pick us up out front with the plan being that his brother would drive us all to the restaurant; the idea was that neither Edgar or I would have to give up the parking spots that our cars were in and we wouldn't have to search for a space when we got back.
This is the part where Edgar fails to tell me that his brother, who is now 34, barely passed his driving test when he originally got his license.
And apparently failed to ever get better.
And the only time I've ever ridden in a car driven by his brother up to this point was on a trip back from Solvang a few years ago where I was drunk and asleep in the back seat before we ever left the parking lot.
The street in front of our building is one-way. The nearest freeway on-ramp is one block up and several blocks back in the other direction. Our building is also very close to an intersection, the intersection that you would ideally turn left at to head to that block up where the freeway entrance is. So Edgar tells his brother to wait until all of the cars finish going past and then to get all the way over to the left to turn left at the light. And his brother is all "Man, I have to get all the way over to the left?!??" and we're all "Yeah, it's not a big deal."
Except when it is a big deal and someone doesn't bother to check his mirrors to see if any cars are coming before blindly peeling out to cross three lanes of traffic and almost sideswiping three cars in the process. WAY TO GO, BRO. And all of us are like "Oh my god, what are you doing?!" and he's just "Oh, I didn't see them." Because that makes it all right, apparently? So then he takes off to go one more block to catch the left turn, and my god, when he made that left turn I thought I was going to die, because as he turned into the lane he did one of those things where the car is wiggling back and forth like he had no control of it. And I'm all "Uh, excuse me, what is so hard about driving in the middle of your lane?" Same thing at the next left turn. I close my eyes and start taking deep breaths.
Then we're on the freeway. Dear god, the freeway. He drives a Civic. We drive a Civic. I know what "normal" feels like in a Civic. This is not normal. These cars do not fight you to stay in the middle of the lane. You don't have to drive like you're an actor on a TV show and wiggle the steering wheel back and forth. If you do that in one of these cars, you're weaving back and forth across your lane. God, please help me.
And then I start thinking ahead, because I know that the 710/405 interchange is coming up. And I know that this interchange will surely kill me, because 1) it's one of those really circular interchanges where you have to slow way down in order for centrifugal force to not make you fly off the curve and 2) there's hardly any room to merge onto the 405 before you're all of a sudden going back on the 710 in the opposite direction.
And sure enough, we hit that interchange with the posted recommended speed of 25, which means normal people would take it at 35-40, but which my brother-in-law was taking at 60. Where he over-corrected so much that both of the wheels on the right side of the car went over the curb on the shoulder. Every person in the car besides my brother-in-law has grabbed their "Oh shit!" handles (you know, those handles above the door that you can use to help get in or out of the car?), I'm clenching Edgar's thigh, his mother is squealing, and I'm starting to think of all of the things that I wanted to do in life before I died that I'm never going to get to do and how I really don't want the song playing on the radio as I die to be "Sex on Fire" by the Kings of Leon.
All of a sudden we're on the 405, and of course on this Saturday, this part of the 405 has about double the amount of cars and traffic that it normally does for that hour. And his brother then proceeds to wiggle all about his lane for the next 10 miles, never seeming to notice the brake lights in front of him until the last second and at times inexplicably accelerating despite those brake lights.
And I know this whole post makes me sound like I'm one of those drivers, you know the ones, the ones that sit practically on top of their steering wheels and drive 2 miles an hour under the speed limit at all times and accelerate at such a slow pace and brake so far in advance that if you are driving behind them you think your head is going to explode. But I'm totally not. I'm not one of those people. I drive fast and I sometimes follow a lot closer than I should, but I'm a good enough driver to do that without endangering myself and those around me. BUT THIS GUY IS A FUCKING MANIAC. I don't understand how it's possible that he's never been in a car accident.
As we miraculously arrived at the restaurant in one piece, I stumbled out of the car, grabbed my husband's shirt, stared him down, and said "I don't care what excuse you have to use, you will not let him drive us home." Never again. Never ever ever again.
My brother-in-law almost killed me this weekend.
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