When a friend and I are walking toward his or her car, sometimes I’ll inadvertently position myself by the driver’s door, from the habit of waking toward my own car. In these cases I do not demurely move around to the passenger’s spot, because I have never in my life admitted a mistake. Instead I turn to my friend and say, “That’s right, motherfucker, I’ll be driving today.”

If while I’m driving my friend’s car I accidentally turn the wrong way onto a one-way street, I pretend like it’s perfectly normal. I say, “Yeah, we’re going to be zigzagging through oncoming traffic for a little bit. Don’t worry, I do this every day. It’s kind of my thing.” My friend should consider himself lucky I didn’t accidentally turn onto a dead-end street. I have great sympathy for anybody who has to endure one of my life-threatening “short-cuts through the forest.”