Cars are things that men use to show off, to go fast in, to feel powerful and virile, and are things women, and I, use to get places.
Actually according to two minutes of research I just did on the Internet men like cars because they crave power, and because they feel cars are an extension of them, or part of them, or something. Really? If you want power and an extension of yourself, why not just play with your arm, and then start a dictatorship (why do you think dictators always have a signature salute? And also start ‘arms races’!)
I’ve never had any love for cars. Truth be told I’d rather have the ugliest car in the world than a Ferrari, and actually I do really want the ugliest car in the world, because I like to handicap my relationships with women by being pretentiously weird. To me cars are just things to get me places. Except for the past two years when I haven’t had a car and have been using trains/ buses and walking to get places. (By the way, really fat people, walking is that thing you do to get from the toilet to the fridge, well you can also use it to get places, it’s awesome, give it a fighting chance).
The thing is not just one thing but several things:
- I don’t care about macho stuff.
- I don’t like to drive, being the passenger lets me think about things other than ‘what the fuck is this guy doing?’
- I have just spent the past two years jumping back and forth from left side of street driving to right side, and it messed with my head so much I have no idea where I am supposed to look anymore.
- When you lend someone a car and they really enjoy it and then you take it back for three weeks, don’t drive it once, and then hear about how much harder life was for borrowee in said time you feel bad for taking it back.
- I want to be thinner and a walk to the shops helps me avoid the gym by fooling myself ‘It must be four blocks to the shops, that’s the same as 45 minutes on a treadmill right? Pass me that pizza’.
So what happened was I signed up for three classes at the prestigious acting school NIDA right here in Sydney, where I am back living, and I realized something: I need to take a train and a bus to NIDA, in rush hour, and it was going to add probably 2 and a half to 3 hours times 3 to my week for 8 weeks, which is possibly up to 72 hours wasted staring at office workers who have contempt for my casual life-style. I decided instead to ask for my car back, and drive to class.
My eight weeks of classes ended this past Monday night, so I finally had some free time two days later to go and pick up my car. Yay. I can finally get places I no longer need to go, hoorah.
This was my first drive in anyway in 9 months, and my first drive in my own city for over 2 years. I was kind of nervous to be honest.
Here is a bunch of things I observed:
- Your lights don’t turn on themselves, in an old car, unlike other people’s cars that are new and expensive or old and still aren’t turned on by me (resist a sex joke, resist a sex joke, good boy, for once, David).
- You have to really concentrate to drive, damn it, I hate concentrating, it’s like trying to eat while playing ring a ring a rosie (which I do all the time).
- At one point I nearly got as fast as 70km per hour (in a 70 zone) holy crap it felt fast.
- The fact that felt fast really shows just how much I really don’t concentrate on the driving when other people drive me.
- Someone asked me to spell bureau yesterday, which finally reminds me why the hell that word randomly appeared in my I-phone notes for this blog; there is an hour of tedium I won’t get back.
- It’s tedious driving; you have to think about what you’re doing and not on trying to think of funny words that rhyme with slinky.
- I had to go backwards to park, I hate backwards things and thoughts and people and directions, will my torture never end.
- Stinky, blinky, finicky, krinky, funky, twinky ha ha, words that kind of rhyme with slinky are hilarious!
For those of you like me let’s now play the game of annoying people for no reason. Here is how it works, change the word ‘understand’ in a sentence with ‘got’ at a time where it doesn’t work as an exact synonym for. Here is one for you:
“I got a car!” you say.
“Oh awesome” they reply, strangely not asking for more information.
“Why, most people have understood cars for years” you say back with desperate hurt in your voice.
‘What sort?” they ask, after a long, long, uncomfortable silence.
Cars are awesome.
