You know how sometimes you have an argument with someone, and you know that they’re wrong and you’re right, and you can actually prove to them that they’re wrong and you’re right, and they still keep up the argument, and you keep trying to tell them that no, the point they’re trying to make is just wrong, and they just won’t give up?
My friend’s sister, H, was an exchange student in Ohio a few weeks back. Last week, the daughter of the American host family, S, came to visit Finland. When it was time for her to return to the States, there was a problem with schedules and what-not, so finally I suggested I could drive her to the airport.
I drove up to my friend’s house, where H and S were waiting to load the luggage into the trunk of the car. S sat down in the passenger seat and noticed that I drive a stick-shift. So she turned and asked me, “Isn’t this much harder to drive than an automatic?”
“No,” I answered, “it might be a little harder to learn when to change gears and everything, but eventually it’s just as easy.”
“No,” she said, “I mean because it doesn’t have Reverse.”
There was a slight pause as I pondered this statement. “What do you mean?” I asked, puzzled.
“Stick shift cars don’t have Reverse,” S answered, completely straight-faced.
I glanced down at the stick, which has the diagram of where each gear is located. There, on the right side, on the bottom, is a big R. R for Reverse. I pointed this out to her.
“Oh, yeah, I mean, they put that there, but it’s only for show. It’s not really a functional gear,” S insisted.
By this time, my eyes must have been the size of dinner plates. H was standing by the open window, listening to this conversation and trying desperately not to burst out laughing.
“So,” I ventured, after I had regained my composure, “how exactly do people who drive stick-shifts park, then? Or back out of driveways?”
“Well, I don’t know, do I?” S was quite frustrated by this point. “Isn’t that why all your driveways are on inclines? So the car can roll out due to gravity?”
At this point, H decided she would go inside because she was laughing so hard and spectacularly trying and failing not to show it.
I shook my head, started the car and backed it out of the completely-level driveway. S still refused to believe that Reverse was a functional gear. She insisted that the driveway was on an incline. I finally took us to a nearby empty parking lot and drove around backwards in a circle for about five minutes. (A passing dog-walker gave us some very strange looks.)
She still refused to aknowledge the functionality of the Reverse gear.
I gave up and just started laughing. She wouldn’t speak to me for the entire half-hour drive to the airport.
So, let’s hear your stories. Surely everyone has had at least one passing encounter with someone whose stubborn nature will cause them to refute even the most blatantly obvious facts?
