Manual Transmission - FAIL (I almost died...then I got laughed at)

This looks like the car I almost took out. 

First of all...No BMW's were hurt in the actual event or retelling of this story. 

The results of yesterday's poll are in an most of you think Groundhog day is pointless.

For those of you that know me, this will not come as a shock to you.  For those of who that know me only through this blog, you may very well think I am an idiot. I have a very hard time driving cars with automatic transmissions. A. VERY. HARD. TIME. I have always been a manual driver. I like to feel in control of my driving experience and often enjoy 'smokin' someone off the line at stop lights. Anyway...I digress.  Well, there was one day when I thought for sure I was going to die, my life flashed before my eyes and....it was kind of pathetic.

I was on my way to work, I had just exited the freeway. When the most horrifying thing happened. My shoestring got caught around the clutch. I tried to get my foot free so I could depress the clutch and stop, but my foot was contorted in such a way that I couldn't clutch. Needless to say, I started to PANIC, and panic in a way that I never PANICKED before. When I looked up I saw the back end of a BMW with temp tags about 100 feet in front of me. I thought "Oh crap, I am screwed."

I frantically started struggling to free my foot, when I looked back up I was only about 30 feet from the stopped BMW. Then it happened my foot was free at last...Thank God Almighty it was free at last.  (insert random DC Talk song here). When I say I got my foot free, it wasn't in the way that I had intended. What I should have said was I got my shoe off. I quickly slammed the car into 2nd gear to slow me down, and took my 2002 Mazda Protege off-roading, into the grassy area next to the road...This would not have been a big deal, except that it was raining, so not only do I have a soaked, muddy gross sock, I almost crashed into a BMW, but my shoe is still  somewhat wedged under the clutch. I tried to figure out what went wrong, and how I managed to get into this situation to no avail, and how to get my shoe unstuck, 'cause after all I had to be at work.  Well my shoestring was not only wrapped around the clutch 1 time, it was wrapped around 4 times...After about 10 minutes I had finally calmed down, and I had managed to free my shoe. It was time to put the shoe on and go to work. 

Only...it didn't quite happen that way....

I started the car and I was off....Well, almost. It seemed I was a bit stuck. I knew that gunning it to get out would not end well. So, I put it in first gear and after about 5 minutes, I was free. I wish camera phones were commonplace back then I would have taken a pic of my car. It was absolutely covered in mud...Before I went to the office, I decided to run to the car wash because I was afraid that if I got out of my car the way it looked I would automatically be dirty, and did I mention I still had to work that day??

I normally got to the office before my boss showed up, but this day I didn't. He just looked at me and said "rough morning"? I relayed the story to him, very much like I have just relayed it to you, except I think there were flying monkeys involved. He laughed so hard, that I thought he was going to choke on his doughnut.

 I guess it pays off to make the boss laugh. 

It also makes me very sad to tell you that today I drive a Honda Civic that is an automatic. This is the first automatic car I have ever driven. I will never have another automatic car ever again. There is no thrill while driving...except that you can eat Taco Bell.

Anyway, so do you prefer manual or automatic? Why? Please leave your responses as comments.