I have a spectacular list of swear words.
Swearing was okay in school. It was okay during the early part of my career too, until I got bumped up the ladder. Once I started wearing shirts with long sleeves, I’ve had to watch my words with members of my adoped species, ie people with sleeves to cover their arms.
Most of the time, I do pretty well to blend in with my adopted species.
But I do enjoy the occassions when I can roll up my sleeves, mingle with people at the shopfloor, loose the restraints, share a vulgar joke or two, and swear shamelessly. Even then, I’ve seen enough raised eyebrows in the past to know that even at the shopfloor, not everyone enjoys talking in colorful language.
How times have changed.
So most of the time, I live beneath a mask of decency – A mask that gets thrown to the backseat when I get behind the wheel.
Yes, the traffic gives lots of excuses to swear.
The best ones are normally reserved for taxi drivers. Just this morning, there was a taxi driving about 4 car lengths behind me on my right. We were maintaining that distance for about a minute and a half. As I approached a slow vehicle, I signalled my intention to overtake on the right. The taxi sped up and closed the gap, just as my signal came on.
Road courtesy? Hell !
In Singapore, it is often safer to change lanes and overtake without signalling of your intention early, or at all. Many drivers just get annoyed at a car moving into their path, and will speed up to close the gap.
Lady drivers come a closed second.
Don’t get me wrong ladies, I love ya.
But two kinds irritate the hell out of me on the road. The first kind drives a car too expensive for me, and too big for them. Sometimes, looking at the rear mirror, you’ll see only a segment of their head, protruding above the dashboard. They will drive at either the speed limit or 10km/hr below the speed limit. And they will do this at the outermost lane. I was reminded of the second kind just 2 evenings ago. It was peak hour traffic, and a sporty little orange car, zipped in and out of gaps between vehicles like she was in some stockcar race. She cut into the path of the vehicle on my right from 2 lanes on the left. The vehicle beside me hit the brakes and swerved – almost onto the side of my car.
On both occassions, I swore about their smelly body parts.
Then, as fast as the temper rose, it subsided.
I reached my destinations, and wore my mask.
Actually, if I do get to meet the lady drivers of the second kind, I will most likely laugh off these incidents, and admire their guts and attitude. For the first kind, the admiration will fall on their wealth. Whatever the case, I don’t hold grudges. There are also a lot of male drivers who drive badly and recklessly. Their mothers had similarly received long-distance greetings, from the seat of my car, about their smelly body parts.
