Driving Lesson

I'm having to go around in my wife's car at the moment, for reasons I won't go into here.

Last night I came away from our Writers' meeting and found myself nose in to a parking space, in total darkness. It took me a couple of minutes to find the headlamps, but then came problem no. 2. Where is reverse? I know there's a little diagram on the gear stick, but it was dark, and of all the times I've driven my wife's car I've never had to do it in the dark, and I've never had to go backwards. I stirred away with the gearstick, grinding and mashing the gears, trying all the usual places, but I swear, reverse was just not on there. I'm not a mechanical simpleton. I've removed gearboxes and changed clutches in the front street. But this... Well I hope nobody was looking. They'd have seen the door open a crack. They'd have seen a leg sticking out and the car creeping backwards. I reversed out like driving a kid's pedal car. Oh the humiliation!

Yeah, I found where reverse was, this morning. It wasn't there last night, though. I swear.