Can Spy Dogs Drive Stick?

Yes folks, I'm fine.  It took over a week to get there, but it did happen.  And just to wrap everything up, I'll go over some of the higher-level points.  Things that were triggering me, memories, all that stuff.  But then we can all be done with the heavy lifting.   And I finally thought of a positive spin to put on the ole Subaru Feugo incident.  And really, this is the narrative that I'm going to go with from now on. Enjoy!