Surrounded by Idiots (again)
On my route to work on the mountain bike each morning I travel along a number of old Victorian roads – narrow roads, lined on each side by terraced houses. None of the houses have parking, so people park in the street outside their house – in the already narrow road. We end up with about a mile of suburban road where on-coming traffic cannot pass each other without taking turns to snake through available gaps. Generally this is all fine – but then sometimes the school run maniacs arrive en-masse, and ruin everything for everybody.
There I was, cycling along, looking 50 yards up the road toward the next glut of cars waiting impatiently to come towards me. I started slowing down, in order to let them come through first – so I had anywhere to go when I got there. That's when the stupid started to descend. An impatient parent driving a huge 4x4 pulled alongside me – and then realised they had nowhere to go, and were about to block the road. I stopped- giving them a space in front of me. As I stopped, anotherimpatient 4x4 pulled alongside me, and she had nowhere to go either now. She also avoided looking at me, and started beeping her horn at the car in front – that had nowhere to go. On-coming cars had to take to the footpath to get around her.
Finally we started edging forwards again, and what do you know – two more cars do the same thing to me at the next narrow stretch of road – one forces their car in front of me (if I had not stopped, I would be in hospital), and another pulls alongside – blocking the on-coming traffic again.
What is it with people? I figured it's the first day back at school after Easter, so the same parents that don't look in front of their nose are probably late for work – because their children are probably a huge inconvenience to them – and making a packed lunch, dressing them, and booting them out the door was probably a massive un-anticipated problem. Maybe the Au pair had given their notice in too (yes, we live in that kind of town).
When I took the kids to the playpark in town on Sunday morning, a parent I vaguely know left the park with his kids and smiled as he approached. While walking towards me I desperately (and unsuccessfully) tried to remember where I knew him from – and then he passed the table where I sat, looking after fruit-juices and said something that didn't quite register at first.
“I don't think I'm wearing the right brand of sunglasses to stay in the park for very long”
I looked back into the playpark, and realised he was right – it was like some kind of bizarre GAP meets J-CREW meets Tommy Hilfiger commercial. Jack Wills rugby shirts on the Dads, and skinny jeans on the Farrah Fawcett lookalike Mums, showing off legs that could only be the result of hours spent with personal trainers.
I started grinning, and the realised I should probably stop – they would notice the scruffy oik sitting among the cafe tables with the two kids that hadn't brushed their hair that morning. They would realise we were not “one of them”, and cast us out into the park or something.