Now, due to the nature of my job, I have to do a bit of travelling (that’s boring, “in the car” travelling, not exciting, “I shat myself on a bus journey through India” travelling). I sometimes quite like it though.
Car journeys can be fun on occasion. You can rediscover an old album, or shout vehemently at the conservative MP on the five live phone in. But most of the time it is not fun.
Those of you who have ever been in a car with me (or know me in general) know that I am not the most patient driver/person. In my mind, I am the best driver in the country, if not the world, and the other plebs on the motorway around me are obstacles whose sole purpose is to get in my way and slow me down.
Now that is proabably not the best attitude to approach distance driving from, but have to work with what I’ve got…. and keep it real.
In the past, I have been known to admonish people who drive too close behind me, by staring into the rear view mirror and moving my finger, in a sort of “naughty you” way, like you might do to a dog. I regularly stare out drivers who pass me in a way that I don’t like, and on several occasions I have pulled alongside people who nearly cut me out and driven at the same pace as them, purely to frustrate them and teach them a lesson. I have even kicked motorway crash barriers in frustration of breaking down.
That’s the thing with me you see… I am about four hundred times harder in the car than I am in real life. I have had one “fight” in my life. I avoid conflict. But in the car, I welcome it. I even instigate it, if I feel that another driver needs to be taught a lesson.
I am also about four hundred times more psychotic… I create little songs in the car. Songs of frustration. The most memorable being the song I created whilst driving round the second multi-story car park we had visited in Chester that morning, after an hour of looking for somewhere to park the frigging car…The song was called “Oh My Fucking God!” The lyrics were quite simple, you just repeat the title of the song over and over again. But what made it difficult, is that you have to do this whilst straining to sing like a seven year old girl. It was quite hard to get through three parts of the song without feinting, but it was really rewarding when you managed it.
In the last week, I have driven to Glasgow and back in a day; To Bristol, then Cardff, then back in a day; as well as my usual commute to Chester every morning. I have stared at 16 drivers with hatred in my eyes; Flashed my full beam at 2; Been threatened my the driver of an X5 for doing the wanker sign at him… he was. But, I can still look out at my car, and wait for that perfect journey. The one where no one gets in my way. The one where I am let out on a junction by a thoughtful motorist. The one that comes around once in a blue moon… Maybe the next one?
