The Blues

Cars in Rantsville

On March 25, 2011, in Cars, Family, Ranting, Shopping, by Rosie

Dear Extremely Rude Old Codger Wot Parked Next To Me at the Supermarket.

Just, up yours!

Seriously? After quite a dramatic week, I was struggling to hold my genetically-modified RAGE tongue when I returned to my car yesterday afternoon with a load of supermarket shopping to find an older man putting a folded piece of paper under my windscreen.

‘This your car?’ he asked, as I approached with the laden trolley. He wore a sneer, a pinky ring (don’t get me started. I don’t know why I noticed it) a balding head (not that there’s anything wrong with that, Chicken) and a loose sweater-vest thing.

‘Yes,’ I said, although it wasn’t really my car, but a hired insurance vehicle due to a car fire the day before. ‘Is there a problem?’

I already knew there was, by the wave of the pinky ring and the flush to the sixty-something cheeks.

‘YOU need to learn how to park your car then, don’t you?’ he asserted, moving away and taking the folded sheet of paper as he jeered. ‘Look! You’re nearly over the line here. You’re going to open your door and smash it into my car door!’

‘I beg your pardon?’

take a deep breath takeadeepbreathtakeadeepbreathtakeadeepbreath …

‘Where did you learn to drive?’ he jeered this time! ‘You need to learn how to park YOUR car!’

He stopped still for a minute, pointing and pontificating, panting and preening. His car was a mercedes. I LONGED to take the rusted, bad-arse trolley and pummel it into his duco, ram it up his high-falutin’ bum crack. As I’ve explained before, I come from a line of wonderful people that have ‘white haze’ anger issues — in that we’re quick to fire up, roar with gusto and vigor, strike out and crash … then burrrrrrrn.

Over the years I’ve tempered my outbursts. Now, I try to be something that I’m not, and just roll with the punches.

Yesterday, I saw crimson. Not as severe as raw red, but I was angered to the point of using ‘teacher speak’ and looking down my nose as though Pinky Bloke was a lower form of life. I don’t like this part of myself, but sometimes — some days — you just can’t be walked all over.

‘If I need to learn how to park my car (which I probably could improve, just between me and you) then YOU need to learn some manners. There is absolutely NO need to speak so rudely! You rude, rude man!’

Okay. That last comment made me sound like someone from the 1950s who was about to swoon, but it had him walking away, muttering something under his breath. God, but I wanted to follow him and get ‘into it’ about manners and ways to speak to people and the fact that I WAS NOT ABOUT TO OPEN THE RENTAL CAR DOOR INTO HIS FUCKING LUXURY CAR.

I wanted to be Vic Mackey or Sarah Connor or better yet, DEXTER! (although I’m sure Dexter wouldn’t call someone a ‘rude, rude man’ without having him sheathed in plastic!)

What is it with people and the way they approach things? Pinky Bloke wasn’t in danger, hadn’t lost a limb or a loved one, yet he acted as though I had threatened him. It wasn’t what he said, it was the manner. What stopped him from just saying ‘hey miss? Please be careful of your car door when you get in, okay? It’s parked a wee bit too close to the line.’

Low testosterone? Sore back? Penile problems in the bucket seat of his white uber car? Genitals seen better days? All of the above, perhaps? Whatever the case, fella, I’m sorry but please don’t take it out on a woman who has had a car fire the day before, is overly sensitive by nature and who hates supermarket shopping with a passion.

Speaking of which, we were driving along and the car motor popped. The street was busy and the motor kept cutting out, so I headed into a side road, unaware that the engine beneath was catching ON FIRE. Had to restart the thing three times, no smoke had appeared at that stage.

I stopped on a quiet street and said to the kids ‘hmm. I think it might be the battery’. I waited 30 seconds, had a gnawing feeling in the gut, then got them out and far, far away. Within about a minute, the engine had sparked and there were flames coming out of the side of the bonnet/hood.

Shut the fire up!

The Fireies came, and they were lovely, lovely guys. So helpful and reassuring. Once they learnt that Funky was the old fire chief of the city, they gave us a lift home in the fire truck and chatted to the girls about how everything was okay and they’d done really, really well.

None of the Fireies wore a pinky ring.

One thing that’s prominent in my mind from the two day experience with cars in rantville? When the fire was burning, Pip and Pop got upset and called out that they thought I would be in an explosion. I got them 50 metres away and told them to sit quietly, it was okay … but I was needed elsewhere.

A woman came out of her house, walked near me and said, ‘don’t worry love, I’ll just sit with your girls.’ I didn’t pay her much heed, but there were plenty of people around and she seemed nice enough. I looked over occasionally to where she stood with Pip and Pop and she had them giggling, chatting and much calmer than they were.

Later, when I thanked her and she brought the girls closer to the burnt out car, she said ‘we got talking about family and you know what? I went to school with Leanne!’

Lea is a beloved sister who passed away three years ago now. Out of all the homes in all the neighbourhoods in all the car fires, what are the chances of my daughters being comforted in a time of need by a woman who knew their gorgeous auntie?

It was a sign, a lesson, and the girls and I chatted about Lea being with us when we least expect it. No matter how old I get, I will always be amazed by the extremes of human reactions in different situations.