I drove back to work after lunch yesterday. I usually walk, so there’s something different for you already. There's always a surprise or two waiting around here for the travelling reader. I drove down to the junction with the main road and, although that main road is always busy, the junction is not. So I toddled down at my own pace, in no particular rush. I was, after all, going back to work.
Right near the junction, a
dude walks right out in front of me. He had big headphones on and his nose was
deep in his phone. He didn’t look up to see if I was coming at him, which I
was, he just kept on crossing the road, impervious to any danger to his
wellbeing. And, in fairness, there wasn’t any danger to his wellbeing because
it was me who was driving and I was looking out for him and giving him space to
cross the road in safety, even if he couldn’t bother his arse to look up and
see if anybody was there.
I stopped the car and
watched him mooch over. Not a clue had he that I was there. When he got across,
I drove up to the junction he had just crossed and then, and only then, did he
notice me. He did more than just notice me too. He stopped in his tracks,
walked a couple of paces back, stooped and looked into the car at me and
obviously mistook me for somebody else. He walked towards the car and suddenly
realised that I wasn’t the droid he was looking for. So he stopped and waved me
on.
Let me run that last
sentence past you one more time. He waved me on.
‘You A**h**e,’ I said, ‘You P****,
you F******g S***t. Who are you to wave me on, you D**kh**d, you G**sh**e,
you absolute F*c***g Fl**e? Watch where you're B****** going, never mind waving me on!' Of course I didn’t say any of this to him, I just
muttered it under my breath was I watched him amble on, safely back in his own
personal oblivion.
I’ve written about it before.
Hell, after fourteen years of this blogging lark, I’ve written about everything
before. I complain a lot while driving in my car. I mean a lot. And I sometimes do so in the most extreme and unsanitary of language but only when I’m on my own.
If somebody’s with me (Patricia) I will restrict my commentary style to a
sarcasm-laden but family friendly-one. ‘Pick it up there, Sadie, we’ve all got
places we need to be.’ Or ‘that’s right, Martin, don’t bother with that old indicator,
I’m completely psychic back here.’ I always give my targets a name, just to maximise the bitter and condescending quality of my commentary.
That may seem bad enough but, when I’m on my own,
anything goes.
‘What are you playing at you
ridiculous C******* Wa**e*?’
‘Go back and read the Rules
of the Road, you daft F******. Go on, you B******, I’ll mind your car while you’re
doing it.’
Summertime is more
challenging because I often drive around town with the window open and I forget
about it and let rip at some unsuspecting citizen. I got a standing ovation
from a small crowd outside the courthouse last year for one of my little diatribes.
Being in a small town is
also something of a hazard. You can be halfway through a soliloquy before you
realise that it’s a friend’s dad or a relative’s grandmother you’re going off on.
The trouble is, I enjoy it too
much to stop. I’m not really all that mad, I just like dropping the old Bon Mot
on the inane pedestrians and super-inane motorists I see every day. Plus,
on a slightly deeper level, I really wish they would all do better. Care more
about their safety and the safety of others. I mean, I’m not the best driver or
anything and Lord knows I’ve made my own mistakes out there. Perhaps it’s that
I’ve learned something from my own experiences. I think that’s probably it.
Your brief moments of inattention, carelessness, selfishness, and general
A********** can come with a huge and terrible price if they come at the very
wrong place and the very wrong time.
So, let’s do better out
there, eh? Take a little pressure of an Old Man’s swear box. It doesn’t take
much. Just wake up and look around you. Have a think about how that thing you’re
about to do might impact on that other person who is right there in front of
you.
If you can’t do that, well, rest
assured, I’ll be out there somewhere, swearing at you and throwing one-liners at
you from behind the tenuous and debatable safety of my windscreen. And I won’t
be pulling any punches either, you sorry excuse for a F****** miserable P****.
Have a good day, whatever you
get up to.
Stay dry.
2 comments:
I got a notification from the DVLC (the NCT to you, I believe) a few weeks back. Apparently if I wanted to keep my driving licence I had to reapply. I didn’t need to take a test or anything (personally I think I should’ve) but as long as I’d had an eyesight test in the last two years and could see well enough to drive that was about it. Oh, and a hefty fee. As it happened due to COVID I hadn’t had an eye test in over two years—not like me—and wasn’t in a terrible rush to. I’ll probably go after my winter booster. Anyway, it was decision time: Do you need a driving licence for anything other than photo ID? And the answer was, no. So, I sent it back. I can now no longer legally drive and feel strangely relieved by the fact. I told my daughter and I could see she didn’t quite know how to react. I think she finally settled on: Shit, my dad’s getting old. But she was a good girl and said nothing. Too late by then anyway.
Do I miss not having a car? Truthfully, no. When I had one I used it to cram my life, which was already pretty full, to bursting point. I was always zooming here, zooming there. Not these days. And the lovely thing about where we live now is everywhere I want to go is within walking distance. Who needs a car?
You're right Jim. If you don't need a car, why bother... hmm, yes, we may be getting old all right :)
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