I Drew This

We went to Brighton beach on the weekend to let the kids run around and get wet. We also met some friends down there, chatted, threw the frisbee, had chips, sat in the park, went for coffee.

Nice.

Funny thing was though, as we sat drinking our caffeinated beverages, I saw a late model car drive past with a rather elegant and, may I use the expression (yes Drew, you may), dolled-up lady of late-30-something years behind the wheel. The steering wheel. She’d hardly have been behind the rear, passenger-side wheel unless maybe the car was stationery (yeah, if the car was a pen and a manila folder)… unless the car was stationary and she was changing the tyre or something.

So, she was driving past, looking pretty… well, pretty when I noticed the frilly part at the bottom of her lovely frilly beige frock was caught in the car door and flapping in the breeze inches from the road.

It’s just one of those things at which you can’t help but laugh on account of its being so funny.

It’s the vehicular equivalent of coming out of the toilet with your skirt tucked into your knickers or having a bit of toilet paper hanging out of your undergarments.

I’m trying to think of a male equivalent embarrassing thing but all I can come up with is having your fly undone. It seems much less noticable and, if discreetly done (or is that discretely… I’m going to have to look those two up again) is much easier to remedy.

One thing guys do though that annoys the shit out of me is to drive along with the window down on their car (just in case you thought, from the context of what I’d written, they were driving a combine harvester), and hang their right arm out of the window.

You’ve seen it. The whole forearm, all the bits below the elbow hang over the side of the car door like something from a butcher shop.

Personally, I can see no reason for it at all. The only possible rationale I can see for hanging your limb out to get sunburnt/windburnt/wet is to give the impression to other drivers and passers-by that you are the kind of guy who hangs his arm out the window.

Because I’ve tried it. And it’s really uncomfortable. I don’t mind resting my right elbow on the top of the window-down door, with my hand somewhere between one and two o’clock on the wheel (the steering… let’s not go there again). But with your whole arm out the window there are so many things you can’t do.

You can’t signal. But I guess, if you’re the kind of guy that is trying to impress people by your one-handed driving prowess, you’re probably going to think people love you so much that everyone will agree that using the blinker is beneath you. You know where you’re going. Why should you care whether anyone else knows?

And because you’re mostly going to be steering with the left hand, other things you can’t do are:

• change gears
• change the radio station to triple M
• adjust the mirror to check your hair
• send and SMS to all the chicks you know to tell them you’re driving with your whole forearm out the window
• get your smokes out of the glove box
• avoid a sudden accident
• turn left (gracefully)
• open the door to get your frock out
• get an even tan

I’m sure there are others.