I like to vary my commute from time to time. It stops me getting bored, and there are at least three routes home that can take about the same amount of time. Twenty minutes on a good run, thirty on a bad.
One of my routes takes me through the village of Bray. It is a nice little village and is home to one of the best restaurants in the world. That is not my opinion. That is fact, determined by people who eat out a lot, and not just take-aways.
At one side of the village there a small road bridge over what I assume to be a Thames contributory. It is only about thirty yards wide, but it is so narrow that only one car can pass at a time. The rules dictate that on my way to work I give way to oncoming traffic, and when going home, they give way to me. Not the same people, that would be an incredible coincidence, or just plain weird.
One night last week I was driving home singing away to Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit, as I do when I’m trying to relax, and I decided to go through Bray. As I approached the bridge I noticed there was a car coming the other way that didn’t look like stopping.
Well, it was my right of way, so neither was I.
So we both drove the fifteen yards to the centre of the bridge, our headlights obscuring a proper view of each other.
We then sat there for approximately three weeks.
Or about ten seconds, I am not sure.
Someone beeped a horn, it wasn’t one of us. It came from behind me. Then the drivers side door of the car in front of me began to open. Suddenly it occurred to me, what if they thought the beeping horn was me and they were just about to kill me to death with a baseball bat? I have read about road rage, I know what can happen.
Then the figure emerged.
All seventy wizened years of it.
She ambled over to my car and motioned for me to wind down my window. Which I did.
“I’m really sorry, but I wondered if you could move your car?”
“I, err, but…” I began, wondering if berating a septuagenarian means I go straight to Hell without so much as a weekend stay purgatory.
“I know I should move mine, but I can’t go backwards, whenever I do, I seem to crash” she finished.
“err, Ok.”
Old people are my nemesis. I simply cannot express my anger at them, no matter how furious or frustrated I might be on the inside. A moment did pass where I considered asking her to reverse back over the bridge, as was my right, but I thought that her crashing over the side, and the subsequent involvement of Police and Ambulances etc. would probably mean I would be late for the take-away I had just ordered. No amount of old-person bridge-falling hilarity is worth a cold Chinese.
And so backwards I went. Blushing. Perhaps my reputation would have been better served if someone had come at me with a baseball bat?
{ 36 comments… read them below or add one }
Mr Angry – The voice of Reason has prevailed.
Hold the phone, I thought you were going back to the Alps this week!
she probably had all her old woman mates in the back of the car and it wouldnt surprise me if they had spent all day going over the bridge getting other people to reverse.
But for it being the wrong side of the country that might well have been my old Mum you met. She can’t do backwards either. Come to think of it she’s not that good on forwards, right or left. So it could have been her trying to get home, the long way….
I’m confused. Did horn-beeping person behind you reverse too?
Old ladies have so much power.
Was she wearing a hat? Have you noticed how many old people wear hats in cars? Generally men tho. Proper full on Titfers.
Old people being your nemesis is probably a good indication that your parents brought you up to respect the older generation. Which has got to be a good thing. Well done Angry’s parents.
I’ll remember that line and use it in future. I’m getting on a bit and I’m sure I can pass for wizened in a dim light.
But Z you just told Greavsie how luciously young you are…no way you’ll get away with it no way…we all know you’re really a hot young thing.
Hah! Mr A – bested by an old bat – who’d have thought.
Reverse back over the bridge?
Is that like reverse over the bridge or go back over the bridge?
Or have you discovered a way to reverse forwards?
Whichever it is, that is why old people should be banned from the road!
I was driving to the station the other day during rush hour (emphasis on “rush”) when the car in front of me stopped to wait for a gap in the oncoming traffic, in order to navigate around a puddle. A puddle about 4 inches deep that no other car had any trouble driving through. Needless to say a coffin dodger was at the wheel, and made me miss the fast train…
Did you get her number?
My parents elderly neighbour who recently had two knee operations (different knee’s) drove across her drive, through a fence, down my parents drive, across the road and straight into the house opposite causing structural damage to a property the owners were trying to sell.
Turned out she didnt even have a licence and insurance but has been driving for years, the police got involved and seemed to brush over this fact, telling the people opposite to claim off their house insurance.
And the same little lady is now driving a blue metro.. Hooray for the legal system.
billyboy – Away next week, I fly on Sunday morning.
Oli – Is that how the old people get there kicks nowadays? I blame the Government.
Dr J – That is a very scenic route indeed…
Fussy bitch – The beeper wasn’t on the bridge, they could see the blockage.
Mrs F – Indeed, I was brought up, not dragged up.
z – Not wizened in the Harry Potter sense of course.
Wendz – it is not the first time, and unlikely to be the last.
TJ – I am confused. We do not do grammar here.
Amy – I have read you can drown in two inches of water. Perhaps that is why she was scared?
greavsie – It started AU52 I think, and there may have been an X in there somewhere.
Goodwin – If ever there was a case deserving of an ASBO, that is it!
That might’ve been my aunt. She lives in Bray. And she can reverse, but she likes to wind young men up. It’s a sexual thing.
Softie.
At least she was polite and prudent, and I bet she didn’t smell of wee like those old biddies on the bus in the evening.
MC Glammer – Does your Aunt drive a Golf?
La Cubana Gringa – Not something I get called very often. Not sure I like it.
Ariel – It was quite windy, so not sure I could have detected any wee smells.
I’m truly of the belief that strict driver’s license tests must be passed at every age and particularly for the elderly.
Accidents will happen, but there are accidents that don’t need to happen.
Poor Angry, were you blushing for having to back up, or for the Nirvana song;-P
Did you ask her out for a drink?
Ldbug – I’ll have you know that song brings back very happy memories of my teenage years. Though it probably frightened her when I wound the window down.
Sorry, greavsie started it. He asked if you got her number!
It’s a silver star for mowing down a Sept isn’t it? Gold for an Oct..
Oh dear, I have written two comments but neither of them have appeared! Have I done something horribly, horrid – like being drunk in charge of an unamusing pun? Oh no! I been banished to the nether world!
Enough about the old biddy, how was the Chinese?
Thomas – It is not you, it is my new fangled anti-spam thingy-majig. Sometimes it puts comments in a queue and I have to approve them, sometimes it doesn’t. I do not know the rules, but I have told it off a few times.
Peacharse – Hello. Like I used to have sewn into my swimming trunks?
day in bed – Very tasty thank you. Though they did piss me off the other night, I will tell you all about it when I get back from my holiday
Hmm.
Why is it that this post more than any other makes me attracted to Mr Angry?
I generally prefer men when they are cross. It makes them more energetic.
Am I weird?
Wait hang on not weird – just realised I’ve had a bottle of wine. oops.
Oh bless! What chivalry! Bless! (I bet the old bag tries that and then tells all her Bridge Club friends about how she made this angry bloke reverse!)
do you normally crash in reverse?
ah-ha, found out your weakness, Mr. A!
Kat– i think it was the blushing part that did it.
You’ve got that bit after the bridge in the village where you have to give way again. Michael Parkinson must be taking his life into his own hands every time he crosses the street.
Kat – Do not be concerned, you are not the first drunk woman to find me attractive, and hopefully you won’t be the last.
Sooz – If I have been the victim of some sort of old person ‘dare’ I won’t be happy.
Clarissa – Not every time.
maggie – a weakness yes, but difficult to exploit…
Cliff – I’ll keep an eye open for Parky next time I drive through there!
The worrying thing is that I generally find you reasonably attractive when I’m sober.
It’s just that when I’m sober, I’m prim, ‘unattainable’, and don’t comment on other people’s private spaces…
Oy my. It’s been a hard week so far.
‘oy my’? I’ve had a couple, but not that many.
‘Oh, my’.
Sigh. I’ll stop now.
We may need to check with Katie, but it sounds like the road politeness movement found another proponent
Old people! Bah. They think they own the world. Dressed in their beige and grey and slippers, slowing the world down, pushing in asking for help. You should of lifted her car over the side of the bridge and told her to report to the nearest Old Folks Home. If she can’t reverse she shouldn’t be on the road. Fuckin’ oldies!
Actually….Bray…the home of two famous restaurants. But I’m picky.
All you people going on about old buggers….have some empathy huh ?
JVIP