Writer's Block: Tossing and Turning

[badgerpdx]

I'm driving a Citroen DS with a Citromatic transmission (important detail) on a dirt road through a forest, but I'm in the BACK SEAT trying to steer the thing, I can't get near the brakes BECAUSE I'M IN THE BACK SEAT and the thing keeps accelerating...all the while I'm thinking, what made me think driving from the back seat would be a good idea? I

Comments

[dan4behr]

I always recall the brake on a DS/ID is a 'Champignon', a little mushroom-like brake button instead of a pedal.
Heard that takes quite a bit of getting used to....

and yeah, that would be tough to reach from the back seat!

[badgerpdx]

On the DS and the wagons, it's the mushroom, on the ID, it's a "regular" brake pedal. The quotation marks are there because it still works like a Citroen braking system:

On a regular car, the amount of braking is dependent on how far you push the brake pedal (how many in/cm etc). On a Citroen, the brake pedal doesn't travel near as much: It's how hard you push on the pedal: You're opening a high pressure valve attached to brakes modeled after those on race cars. Every review in every auto magazine I've ever seen all agree on one thing: They have the most amazing brakes: Flat, level, fade resistant, and the first simple antilock system. The car also self adjusts the ratio front/back depending how loaded down the car is. Astonishing, really, on 1955 technology: At a time when most American cars couldn't do ONE panic stop from their top speed without fade, the DS could literally do them all day long. Not that I'm enthusiastic about the car or anything.

[maxauburn]

I've had that same dream- of being in the back seat and trying to drive a car while leaning over the front seat! I think it may be a fear of losing control of one's life?

I love flying dreams.

I used to have flying dreams where I'm soaring high in the clouds like Superman, and, in one dream like that- in summer 1981- I was starting to fly off into space, when one of the two cats George had at that time woke me up by jumping on my stomach.

I'm glad she did- I've read in the Carlos Castaneda books that, if you dream you fly away from Earth in your dream, you could die, because it's really your soul, leaving your body.

If you believe in that sort of thing- which I do.