I have been enjoying coming back into town from the workshop, parking-up and just sitting in the car for up to three quarters of an hour with the windows down, listening to snippets of conversation between passers-by and eyeing-up inappropriately-aged women. That was a hyphen-heavy sentence.
I remember a friend telling me years ago that his depressive father would sometimes leave the house when things got too much and shut himself in his car outside until he felt better. My friend had a theory that the metal bodywork of it acted as a Faraday Cage, cutting him off from the Earth's magnetic field and somehow helping his state of mind.
That could be, but your car is also a little environment which - when it isn't in motion - is easy to control. I am not talking about climate control, although there is that too. It is cosy and safe if you discount parking wardens. Even bears don't seem to have worked out how to smash car windows.
My car refuge habit began during lockdown, when it was illegal to go to the pub and I did not want to go straight home. Now I have got out of the habit of visiting it every day and am saving quite a lot of money as a result. In any event, the pub has quietly changed, mainly because there are many people who I used to see every day who I have not seen for the last couple of years. Either they have died of Covid or they have had their routine irreparably broken as mine was. The sad thing is that I don't miss them.
For two years you could not overhear any conversation on the street which did not contain the words 'pandemic' or 'covid' but things are getting back to the new normal and the backlog of weddings is being cleared faster than the waiting list of the NHS. Here are some of the comments I have heard from the parked car.
Mother to daughter: And who discovered Pluto?
Daughter: Herschel.
Mother: That's right.
Young man on his phone: And now we are going to have a nuclear war. How cool is that?
Woman on a hen party: I could live here. All the houses are the same - so different.
American tourist: And there's Lady Danbury's house!
That break between work and home...much needed.
ReplyDeleteOverhearing conversations.. intriguing!
Not having a break makes it seem as though you are just living to work and waiting to die.
DeleteHerschel must have lived to be about 300 years old then. Perhaps he used that church tower with the door to find the planets.
ReplyDeleteCould be.
DeleteObserving others secretely from your car provides quiet/free entertainment. You note, Covid is less the topic now and that's good. All the extra cash will be burning a hole in your pocket...
ReplyDeleteAll that cash is going down a black hole.
DeleteEach to his own Tom - there are worse things to do. I can imagine all kinds of conversations - fascinating.
ReplyDeleteI forget most of them.
DeleteI’m reminded of the golden girls quote about the Greek god Pluto being gay and Rose shouted “ Micky mouse’s dog was gay?”
ReplyDeletePerhaps it was Bluto - hello sailor.
DeleteI plead guilty to listening to snippets of conversations as well. You learn a lot about people that way. One thing that I really loved there was all the museums and how those museums are set up to be kid friendly and to invite kids to interact with what they are seeing and learning. Parents were having wonderful conversations with their kids there. That mother, I think, was either talking about Uranus, or she made a mistake.
ReplyDeleteEven as a kid I preffered the museums which did not want you to interact. I just liked staring into dusty glass cases.
DeleteI have nothing to add except you must have quite puny bears in Britain. They do break car windows here. The only glass immune from them is around their indoor enclosures at the zoo.
ReplyDeleteWe don't have any bears any longer. So, a grizzly smashes windows eh? I'll bear (no pun intended) that in mind next time I am driving through the Rockies.
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