Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Stupidville UK

Oh yes, the town I live in contains the highest percentage of stupid people in the whole world. Unfortunately most of them drive.

Just the other day I pulled my car over to the right hand side of the road, ready to drive diagonally across the road to reverse my car into my drive. I saw a car approaching from the other direction, but seeing as the person had to stop at the crossing there was obviously no imminent danger of us having a head on collision. I have no idea what was going through the mind of this driver but as she passed she looked at me as if I was completely mad and muttered something under her breath. Did she think I was actually going to continue driving on the wrong side of the road for the whole length of the road? Has she never seen anyone park facing oncoming traffic before?

This isn’t the first time I have received funny looks when parking my car on my drive. I have no idea why but the whole “reversing car into drive” thing seems to completely confuse everyone in the vicinity. It’s like they’ve never seen it done before.

I seem to have the same problem when I’m parking in town. Today I was in a car park when I pulled diagonally across the “road” to reverse into a parking space, but the person in the car behind me pulled up right behind me! So naturally I shouted (as you do when you forget that your window is wound down) “Stop being so stupid! It’s obvious I’m reversing into a space! Why else would I drive diagonally across the road?” I don’t know if he heard me or not, but he backed off, and as he passed I gave him one of those “if looks could kill you would be dead right now” looks.

Sometimes people are a little overly patient though. Approaching crossroads on my way home there was a car sitting in the middle, facing me, waiting for me to pass so that he could turn. Now I make no exaggeration when I say I was still half way up the flamin’ road and a long way off from the junction – this person had all the time in the world to turn into the road, but I still had to flash him before he did.

Give me strength. It’s bad enough when pedestrians lack road sense, but other motorists?

Thursday, April 10, 2008

You Are Now Entering… The Twilight Zone

I know; I’m a very naughty, lazy, blogger. I haven’t blogged in ages, but in truth, nothing very blog worthy has happened in my life of late. Of course, I still haven’t told you about the time I was hunted down by a police dog last summer, but I shall save that for another time now.

Today the most bizarre thing happened. I woke up and took out one of my ear plugs to see what time it was (I know; I still haven’t worked that one out yet either). It was 1pm on the dot. But when I went to return the ear plug, it had gone! I sat up, expecting to find that it had rolled under me (I know; I still haven’t figured out how something can roll under an immovable object, but it does sometimes). Still no ear plug. In fact, I virtually stripped the whole bed looking for it. It was nowhere. It had vanished.

Now, I’m familiar with the tooth fairy and the sock monster, but an ear plug taker? In front of my very eyes? (I know; I still haven’t figured out what “very eyes” are, but it sounds good)

Obviously by this time Mr Man had stirred.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m looking for my ear plug. I took it out to see what time it was (yeah, I still haven’t worked it out yet) and now I can’t find it”
“What is the time?” he asked out of interest.
“It’s one O’clock” I answered, as I looked at my watch again. I don’t know why I looked at my watch again because I already knew what the time was. I suppose it’s one of those pointless things that we do, like when old people look at their watches when you offer them a cup of tea. It seems that these little time keepers hold the answers to all of life’s important questions – like whether to have a cup of tea or not.

However, this time when I looked it was 12pm on the dot. Eh? How could I have misread that? I could understand it if it was 5 past 12 and in my bleary eyed state had mistaken it to be 1pm, but…

There was only one explanation for it – we had travelled back in time! Had The Ear Plug Taker reversed time so that I wouldn’t remember him/her/it taking my ear plug? And what do they do with them?

I suppose, for now at least, that will remain one of life’s unanswered questions…