Van Drama

Hello there,

Apologies for lateness of this update. I often log in here, think about posting, and then don’t bother, because I have nothing interesting to say. Having glanced at my previous posts, however, this does not seem to have prevented me posting in the past.

A few days ago, I was driving home in the middle of the afternoon when I stopped behind a van at a traffic light. The traffic light turned green, as is the normal procedure for these things, but the van did not move. I waited for a bit, and then realised that he must not have seen the light change. I gave him a toot on the horn. Not an aggressive toot, more a Herbie style “beep the light’s changed my good man”. He drives on, I have helped oil the wheels of society.

Until we arrived at the next set of traffic lights. I pulled up alongside the van, and the guy gestured to me to roll my window down. I did so. I have no idea why I did this. Maybe, after my helpful beep, I thought that the man would thank me for highlighting the change of the light and enabling him to continue his journey that little bit quicker. He did not.

“WHAT THE F***ING HELL DO YOU THINK THAT YOU ARE DOING BEEPING ME MATE? YOU EVER BEEP ME AGAIN AND I WILL KNOCK YOUR HEAD OFF YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

This seemed unlikely. A number of things had to happen in order for this threat to contain any credibility. I would have to see him again, he would have to recognise me, he would have to arrive at a traffic light just before me and I would have to beep him. Highly unlikely, and with this calculation quickly completed I took this opportunity to engage in some fighting talk.

“OH DON’T BE A PRICK!! I THOUGHT YOU HADN’T SEEN THE LIGHT CHANGE!”

Pretty strong stuff I think you’ll agree. He then responded with :

“I HAD CLEARLY STALLED YOU WANKER. YOU COULD TELL BY THE WAY THE VEHICLE STRUGGLED YOU MUGGY PRICK”

At this point, I realised that we were in the unfortunate situation of explaining our side of the argument logically while also maintaining our aggressive stance.

” I WASN’T F***ING AWARE THAT YOU HAD STALLED YOU TOSSER, THE VEHICLE DID NOT DISPLAY SIGNS OF STALLING DICKHEAD, IT JUST REMAINED STATIONARY YOU PIECE OF S**T.”

Job done I think. He decided to call my bluff, however :

“PULL OVER UP THERE YOU BASTARD, AND LET’S SORT THIS OUT.”

Now I’m assuming he wanted some sort of fight. Which would definitely sorted it out. As he was caving my ahead in I would probably have admitted fault in this particular instance.

But this is of course, an assumption on my part. For all I know, he wanted us to pull over so that he could show me how the vehicle had stalled, and signs to spot this in the future.

At this point the light turned green. He didn’t notice. I saw my chance. I pulled away quickly.

“LOOKS LIKE YOU’VE STALLED AGAIN DICKHEAD!”

Before you start e-mailing me to tell how I am a hero to the common man, and a beacon of inspiration for the oppressed frightened majority, please remember that I spent the next minutes of the journey nearly in tears at the thought of a light being red and tthe van catching me up. It was like Speed, except, instead of a bomb going off if they slowed down, an overweight man would get his arse handed to him.

BYE!

Rom