My best stick story: (I've probabaly told this one before... or some version of it
)
In Toronto rush hour traffic in my '82 VW Rabbit, I was sitting at a red light. When the light changed green, I pressed the clutch in to shift into 1st and the pedal dropped right to the floor. Oh no! No clutch.
Imagine my luck: directly behind me in the line of traffic (3 lanes in this direction) is a tow truck. He saw me fail to take off and put on my 4-way flashers, so he flipped his emergency party lights on. The other cars behind started streaming around us on both sides.
We both get out, me quickly heading to look under the hood of the Rabbit to confirm what I think has happened: Yup, "busted clutch cable," I tell the tow truck guy.
Tow truck guy says: "Lucky you. I can push you into that gas station and hook you up right now if you want."
"Nah. Thanks a lot for the offer, but I think I'll be OK."
I don't think he quite believed me, because he followed me for quite a while after we both got back in our respective vehicles.
I got the the car going with the starter in first gear, and shifted the rest of the way without the clutch. Getting home became an adventure in timing lights to avoid stopping ... or when stops were unavoidable, popping it into N and killing the engine when coming to a halt and using the 1st gear + starter trick to get moving again.