Cars. Had one of these things:
Called it Audrey. Drove it all over Scotland, through England, up and down Wales scores of times. Didn't put so much oil in it mind you, and one day it had enough of my neglect. Part of the engine exploded on the east bound M4 forcing me to cripple into the nearest service station, wait two hours for the AA and eventually be told by a tutting mechanic that it was "probably fatal". After another long wait for a truck to carry me back to my origin I was 'truely fucked for a car'. Need a car for my work, see? Can't get at the patients otherwise and they sure as shit don't want to come to me. Got a new one. A bigger one. One that took the weekly five hour drive to North Wales, and my beloved (FUCK YOU NHS!), in it's stride. Enter the dragon:
Two pints to address:
1) Make that three.
2) This is probably not the acme of motoring, I know. But having only ever regularly driven a Mini and a Ford Ka, this felt like being in charge of a T-90. Which sort of led to the next bit.
3) From Swansea-ish to Bangor-ish on my first run took me five hours. This is a journey of about 150 miles. Ish. Five hours gives me an average speed of thirty miles per hour, on national speed limit roads. As I was no longer a mere motorist, rather the commander of a sophisticated weapoms platform, this was clearly unacceptable. If I could get to Chester in three hours fourty, why not Bangor? Which sort of led to the next bit.
Finished the work at six, hit the road and caned it. Fucking hammered it. We're talking speed limit here, but if you know these roads, well, it was a bit silly. Accidents tend to happen during the initial and final ten per cent of the journey. I have told myself this on every bus trip, flight, drive and even walk to the shops that I have been on. Except this one time. Rain was battering the road, Abba was blaring from my car stereo, I was even punching the air out of my window.
One night lying in bed when I was about six I realised that I was going die. I was worrying about school and what would happen when I was no longer a child. I worried about college and then university and then my inevitable death. In the space of about ten minutes. I freaked out, I was hysterical. My dad came to see what was the matter and I told him what was on my mind. Needless to say, he was a bit freaked out too, probably at the thought of paying for higher education. This happens to everyone, I know. You wake up in the night and worry. You think about how the sum of human experience will eventually amount to nothing, that it's all indefatigably pointless. But yet, that new dead rising game looks like a laugh, and anyway, my buddy Mark is back in the U.K. next month, and we'll cut about the place talking shite, and that'll be laugh. Right? Right. Still you worry though.
The first thing I knew was that the back end had gone wrong. Very wrong. It went right, too right. I corrected, of course, but by then I was truely fucked. I remember being bathed in orange light, it must have been the solitary street light, as time slowed down and I was reduced to two thoughts, all sense of control now totally lost. "Fuck" and "I'm going to die". Initially there was panic, but as soon as I realised that I had no control and was sure that I would die I felt extremely calm. The car was flipped and destroyed. I broke out in a mild rash a day later which I took to the hospital and insisted was shingles, having suffered it as a child. It obviously wasn't and the nurse that I saw was very kind, seeing immediately that I was being a bit mental.
Existential fear completely disappeared though. Could not give a fuck that I'd die. It was fantastic, unbelievable, liberating. But the fucker wore off, didn't it? I think I had about eighteen months before that pointless worry insidiously bored it's way back into my consciousness. I'm getting one of these next:
Two pints to address:
1) Make that three.
2) This is probably not the acme of motoring, I know. But having only ever regularly driven a Mini and a Ford Ka, this felt like being in charge of a T-90. Which sort of led to the next bit.
3) From Swansea-ish to Bangor-ish on my first run took me five hours. This is a journey of about 150 miles. Ish. Five hours gives me an average speed of thirty miles per hour, on national speed limit roads. As I was no longer a mere motorist, rather the commander of a sophisticated weapoms platform, this was clearly unacceptable. If I could get to Chester in three hours fourty, why not Bangor? Which sort of led to the next bit.
Finished the work at six, hit the road and caned it. Fucking hammered it. We're talking speed limit here, but if you know these roads, well, it was a bit silly. Accidents tend to happen during the initial and final ten per cent of the journey. I have told myself this on every bus trip, flight, drive and even walk to the shops that I have been on. Except this one time. Rain was battering the road, Abba was blaring from my car stereo, I was even punching the air out of my window.
One night lying in bed when I was about six I realised that I was going die. I was worrying about school and what would happen when I was no longer a child. I worried about college and then university and then my inevitable death. In the space of about ten minutes. I freaked out, I was hysterical. My dad came to see what was the matter and I told him what was on my mind. Needless to say, he was a bit freaked out too, probably at the thought of paying for higher education. This happens to everyone, I know. You wake up in the night and worry. You think about how the sum of human experience will eventually amount to nothing, that it's all indefatigably pointless. But yet, that new dead rising game looks like a laugh, and anyway, my buddy Mark is back in the U.K. next month, and we'll cut about the place talking shite, and that'll be laugh. Right? Right. Still you worry though.
The first thing I knew was that the back end had gone wrong. Very wrong. It went right, too right. I corrected, of course, but by then I was truely fucked. I remember being bathed in orange light, it must have been the solitary street light, as time slowed down and I was reduced to two thoughts, all sense of control now totally lost. "Fuck" and "I'm going to die". Initially there was panic, but as soon as I realised that I had no control and was sure that I would die I felt extremely calm. The car was flipped and destroyed. I broke out in a mild rash a day later which I took to the hospital and insisted was shingles, having suffered it as a child. It obviously wasn't and the nurse that I saw was very kind, seeing immediately that I was being a bit mental.
Existential fear completely disappeared though. Could not give a fuck that I'd die. It was fantastic, unbelievable, liberating. But the fucker wore off, didn't it? I think I had about eighteen months before that pointless worry insidiously bored it's way back into my consciousness. I'm getting one of these next:
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