What is it with men and their driving skills? There is nought a man is more insecure about than his driving skills. It's almost [but not quite] as bad as a woman and her weight. If you should ever be bored and in need of some quick entertainment, just walk up to the closest male and tell him he can't drive. Throw in a holier-than-thou look, and add a slight shake of the head. Then stand back, cover yourself and watch the fun!

There's one time though, that you should never open your mouth about this topic. And that's when you're in a car with a guy at the wheel. Well, that is unless you want to commit suicide; but even then I can think of many more pleasureable and less painful ways to go! I tried it once - it was long ago, and I was much less wise then. "Dad," I said, trying to spice up a long, boring drive down to Goa, one summer. "You're not a very good driver. Even Mom drives better than you!"

I doubt I'll ever forget the look of his that I caught in the rear-view mirror. Surely, treachery of this sort from his own son was more than he was willing to put up with. I could tell he was contemplating whether he should leave me to hitch hike my way to Goa or demonstrate his driving prowess by stepping on the gas and slaloming the car across the lanes. Now while the former seemed like quite an adventure indeed, and I was certainly game for it, I feared his testosterone infused male brain might decide to settle for the second option instead. I had to do something if I wanted to avoid the following day's newpapers screaming - "Family of four killed in car crash yesterday. Driver's final words were 'Okay, okay. So maybe Mom isn't that bad a driver.'"

"Ummm, Dad," I quickly interjected. "I wasn't speaking about driving cars. I was talking about golf." That calmed him down a little bit. [Thankfully, he isn't as insecure about his golf game.] We then had to contend with a good half hour of listening to him spew forth a multitude of reasons why driving is a male task and men are always better at it than women. Mom, grateful just to have been spared an untimely death, just kept mum. So long as he didn't think she was overweight, well, she didn't really care!