3rd Gen MT Cringe Story

I was meeting some buddies of mine in downtown Galveston for dinner and drinks. I roll up to some street parking with my windows down and heard some girls speaking French as they were sitting at a table enjoy a few drinks of their own. This is very unusual in this neck of the woods so it caught my attention. We make eye contact, I give them a head nod, they smile, and I realize I'd better not make a fool of myself parallel parking with this lovely audience... I somehow managed not to screw the actual parking up too bad but when I put it in reverse I guess I only got it halfway in gear. I'm guessing the shift sleeve made it past the synchro/blocker ring buy didn't engage the dogteeth on the gear. As soon as the clutch made contact all hell broke loose. I immediately clutched in but the grinding continued as the transmission spooled down. They laughed at me. I speculate that the dog teeth of the shift sleeve and gear were ever so slightly running up against one another (feel free to chime in if you think differently)... in any case, it was embarrassing as hell and I walked away from there metaphorically with my tail between my legs.

PS. not looking for sympathy. I thought it was funny as hell. I definitely could have played it off better. I've got a few ideas of my own but I'd be curious as to what y'all think I should have said after getting out of my truck.

 

It happens, they’ll be more.
They probably didn’t understand English gear grind anyways.

 

lol

 

How hot were they on a scale of 1-10?

 

They were French, OP left it to the imagination. Don’t ruin it for me.

 

"Um...pretend you women didn't hear or see what just happened. Cheers!"

 

They said "speaking French." Girls could be Québécois.

Still need to get it fully into gear for that to matter.

 

Could be Canadian

 

I'm sure they were laughing at you. The only automatic transmission cars in Europe are what they rent to Americans.

 

I was selling a third gen manual back in my dealer days. Guy asked to take it for a test drive. Swore he knew how to drive manual and was asking for a manual one specifically. Older dude, so I figure, hey, okay, he probably knows how to drive stick. I give him the truck, watch him nearly stall leaving, then he shoves it IN REVERSE while moving at about 20kph, and omg the noise that came out of that trans. He claims the truck was faulty and takes off.

 

It happens, you know what almost never happens? losing ones country to the german army in a matter of a month. Thats embarassing.

 

Hairy armpits are the give away.

 

Probably Louisiana French (Cajun) as Galveston is less than 100 miles from Louisiana.

 

That's better than getting laughed at by a couple of girls in the drive thru simply because you drive a Tacoma.

 

Have you heard true cajun? It is as far from French as Pidgin English is from English.

I've been on some nearshore rigs where Cajun/creole was the dominant language. It was a high-speed nasal volley of indistinguishable vowels and a slight suggestion of soft consonants. If there's a word or sentence break in there, its because the speaker coincidentally paused to breathe. I have a chance of understanding French. I understand most south-of-I-10 accents. Cajun is a wild musical utterance that I have no hope of understanding.

If you hear Louisiana creole-french, you'll know it. Its unmistakable. It sounds like someone trying to recite the opening lines to a ZZ top song while their cheeks are stuffed with marshmallows.

 

Probably sounded German to them

 

Yeah, I know Cajun when I hear it and agree it's not true French. I live in Galveston but have spent a lot of time in SW Louisiana.
Just guessing on what OP may have heard. Also, we have lots of cruise ships in Galveston now with multi-national crews so that's another possibility why those girls were downtown, perhaps on shore leave, adjacent to the cruise docks.