I’m getting increasingly edgy on the road, and I don’t mean in a chic boutique, innovative business kind of way.
I mean in an erratic, emotional way, verging on unstable.
Not nervous with my own capabilities. I’m confident in those.
Granted, I’m a bit of a plodder and I’ll occasionally sit at a green light thinking of time gone by.
Then, somebody has the gall to honk me, to sit on their horn with the patience of a stock broker.
And I change.
My skin goes a darker shade of red, my ears produce flames, and horns protrude from the bulging veins in my forehead.
Before anybody asks, I do wear a hat when I drive. It keeps the sun from turning the freckles on my ears into sunspots. But I’m not the Sunday driver people laugh about at dinner parties. I’m really not.
I’m cautious. Easily distracted even. But I’m not old, and while my hat might not be a snapback, it’s not of the Bunnings garden variety either.
Then, having been moved from my comfort zone by an impatient … well, you know the ones, driving a four-wheel-drive that’s only ever seen bitumen, rushing to the shops after triple parking to drop the children to kindergarten, windows down with a filthy cigarette stuck to the corner of their mouth.
Anyway, having been moved from my comfort zone, a beaten up Holden pulls alongside of me, also with windows down and music blaring with a perfect four-beat and words understandable only to those who’ve taken the time to read the lyrics … surely.
I’m getting angrier by the second when the Holden rushes onto the roundabout and cuts off another car. They wave at each other. What?
I sit, and watch. Furious. The car behind me hits the horn – just a little beep, but enough to make me think.
That guy they laugh about at dinner parties isn’t such a bad bloke after all.
