Last night Julie was nice enough to let me take her car on a refresher course at driving stick. And it was glorious. Allow me to rhapsodize.

You see, my friends, driving a manual, like every other analogizable thing, is like making love to a woman. Yes, it's a matter of instinct, but mostly I mean that it's awkward and embarrassing, full of fits and starts and thrashing around. Going too fast will prompt unhappy yelps from underneath you; go too slow and the whole operation will grind to a halt, leaving you to frantically flail about, all the time keenly aware of the disapproving gaze of the owner of the equipment to which you have foolishly been granted access.

But through persistence and experience things can eventually be made to click, and you'll have a few precious moments of clarity before the need to repeat the ordeal begins to mount anew, and someone starts screaming at you to get off the road.

Anyway, after driving around Arlington for half an hour I felt pretty confident about my ability to get a stick-shift rental car off the lot without it bursting into flames. So I went to Microcenter and bought myself two wireless routers to celebrate, then went home and slept like a baby.