In 2022, Mary Griffis found herself drowned in sorrow after her brother Peter's heart-breaking accidental death. In the months that followed, Griffis had to navigate the overwhelming experience of both feeling sad at her brother's death and being consumed by the tough tasks of settling Peter's affairs, too much paperwork and endless phone calls.
"It's hard to explain just how tiring it is to have to call again and again and say 'I'm calling on behalf of my late brother...' day in and day out for months and months," Griffis said.
When all the arrangements had been made and Peter's house had been sold, Griffis didn't know what to do with herself.
"What do I do now?" Griffis thought, "Well, I think my brother would want me to do something that makes me happy."
So she decided to do something that she'd always wanted to do: learn how to drive a manual transmission (手动变速器) car.
Griffis thought it was really fun. She liked not just the joy, the sense of freedom of driving and not really having to go anywhere, but also learning something new. She thought it was very comforting for some strange reason.
Griffis enjoyed it so much that she decided to buy a car with a manual transmission. She found one that fit her budget and went and picked it up from the dealership. After pulling out of the lot, everything was fine for about two or three miles. Then she hit heavy traffic on a narrow, two-way road. Her engine died and there was no breakdown lane. She took a deep breath and tried to start the car a few times, but it wouldn't go.
And at this point, because of the traffic, people were so angry. They were urging her to move aside; they were honking (鸣喇叭) and some people even rolled down their windows and shouted as they slowly bypassed her car. But she just couldn't start her car. As people gathered around her, Griffis became more and more nervous.
注意：
1.续写词数应为150个左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Eventually, one of the cars slowed down.
The woman then introduced herself as Robin.
