old house and bad driving

I was living in a rambling old house with several others. There seemed to be a group of men and a group of women. The four women and I were sharing the large L-shaped lounge room and dining room, and the men slept elsewhere in the house, probably in the bedrooms. The women and I were doing our best to arrange the furniture and clean the space. Each of us had a queen sized bed, plus there were tables, a lounge suite, clothing, a television, shelves and rugs to consider. We moved my bed and the round dining table into the dining room space. I was quite happy as I had slightly more privacy than the others as well as the advantage of natural light; one wall was lined with windows. We arranged the other three beds at the far corners of the lounge room and placed the lounge suite in the centre of the room, both because it acted as a room divider and it was the best vantage point from where to view the television. Some of the narrow tables we placed on top of one another against the walls, opting for floor space over table surface space. We then scooped armfuls of clothing from the ground and did our best to organise our wardrobes. The only disadvantage of my 'bedroom' space was that it was so far away from where our clothes were to be kept, in the hall space just off the other end of the lounge room.
Next, I was driving home - home being the place described above. B was beside me and, although I was not driving fast, I suddenly had to stop to avoid hitting the car in front. I realised that I was driving a manual car and momentarily forgot how to drive it. I couldn't find the foot brake so I pulled on the handbrake, stopping the car only a hair space from the vehicle in front. The line of traffic inched forward, starting and stopping, but each time I accelerated I had great difficulty braking the car even though I was driving slowly. At one point I even put my hand through the windscreen and pushed the car in front of us away as we approached it, because otherwise we would have nudged it forward. We passed a police car on our right and I hoped they would not notice us. I wondered if I had been drinking because I was driving so erratically, but I couldn't remember having done so.