Saturday, January 22, 2005 - THE EXORCISM

I like to think of myself as an  honest man, an  honourable member of society.

But when I get behind the wheel  strange demonic possession takes place and I become a Beelzebub himself.

My island is quite small but abundant with cars, on average every household having at least three. The streets are narrow, roads full of holes. Add  Mediterranean temperament  to this mixture and you have a perfect recipe for  nerve wrecking chaos.

Of course we do have traffic rules but  only life saving rule on our little island is - "Do not assume other drivers will abide by the traffic rules! " As they say: If you assume you are an ass!  But in this case if you assume you will also  loose your no-claim bonus.

Do not expect drivers to stop where there is a stop sign, don’t even expect them to slow down or look before entering main street. Also do not be surprised  if the car  before you stops in the middle of a busy road, for God's sake the driver needs cigarettes, or maybe he just feels like a chat with a passer by.

These are almost normal occurrences and after  a while you sort of  learn to tolerate them. But something I will never learn to put up with is discovering new route to get to work every new morning.  Commuting to work in fact seems like being in a computer game, you know those labyrinth type games, where apart from the different obstacles you must work very hard to find a way out. The island is constantly under construction, everlasting process of tearing the old buildings down and erecting new ones. Consequently you will find cranes obstructing different streets on a daily bases. To make things worse, according to Murphy's Law of misfortunate events these cranes are usually lurking in the very bottom of the road, only when you enter deep inside you realize you cannot pass.  Alas too late, there is already a big line of cars hooting behind you.

According to the same law, particularly when you are being  late, somewhere along the way there is bound to be an ancient  truck to jolt in front of you with its last breath of speed. After it has spent all its force to get there this truck will inevitably slow down and for the rest of the trip you will have to drag  like a snail behind them in a thick cloud of smoke.

But, the worst are the grannies. They come in all sizes and shapes. Clean, nice, sweet, ugly or dirty.  But whatever the appearance they all have one thing in common, it takes them ages to cross the road. They are moving serenely like a slow motion picture completely oblivious to the traffic they are obstructing.

So no wonder I become a monster when faced with all this. The amount of curses and the richness of the foul language  I am fluently oozing while driving sometimes takes even myself by surprise. Especially the level of ingenuity I exhibit when creating these sailor's blessings.  Not once I laughed after  voicing these obscenities and curses I came up with. Fortunately all of this is happening behind the closed windows, but  I have to admit there were few occasions  when window went down and also a birdie took a flight.  Several times I was very close to stopping the car, getting out and grabbing the following driver by the neck , pulling him out through the window of his car.  Come on, how thick skinned or stupid you have to be not to realize your bright lights are hurting the driver ahead ?!

This morning was no different, I was waiting an old bat at zebra crossing starting the usual obscene monologue but then all of the sudden I was ashamed. I have instantly became aware of something I always knew - everything you emit always comes back to you. And you can imagine what bad energy bad words are.

Therefore I have decided to change as of today. No foul word will ever come out of my mouth.  When my pressure starts to rise I will think of green meadows or dolphins gliding  through the blue water. Instead of a curses I will utter Buddhist mantras.

I swear here and now, never to use swear words anymore.  I am going to get you Beelzebub, you are completely f....d  ups! Ok, it starts, as of now...