I want to keep this story fairly generic because I’ve probably annoyed a few people. Last night I came home from work, as I normally do, and – yet again – the son of my next-door neighbour had parked his huge old car outside our house. Emily had parked her car on the drive, so I had no-where to park and I ended up dumping it in front of his car face-on, hanging over the drive and into the road.
I went in, had dinner, and moaned quite loudly to Emily about how inconsiderate it was. I whinged for quite some time until I eventually calmed down and decided, following Emily’s advice, that it was better to be calm and keep a friendly atmosphere with our neighbours.
Just as I went outside to get the wheelie-bin in I saw the guy get into his car. I summoned up all my goodwill and gave him a friendly wave, even going a step further by getting into my car to let him out…
But then it all went wrong. I drive a Lexus see – I’m not a ponce or anything, it’s my chariot of choice and it’s got plenty of battle scars over the years. I got in wearing my slippers (hey, I don’t care what you say, slippers are manly) and started the car up. The headlights came on, which they do, because they’re automatic and come on when it’s dark. I instantly blinded them and woke up their small child…
Then I started the car up, put it into reverse and …….. my slipper fell off….
Somehow my slipper jammed down the throttle, and I quickly slammed down the clutch before I lurched across the estate doing 50mph .. backwards.
My engine was roaring away, bouncing off the limiter (I swear I’ve never hit the limiter before… ahem)…. the baby started crying… curtains started to twitch..
I jumped into the footwell, desperately trying to un-stick the throttle from the carpet and the slipper from the pedal.. I yanked at it like some sort of crazy person, causing the car to rock. Looking back on it, I can only imagine what must’ve been going through their heads as I revved the engine at full whack, rocking the car from side to side and blinding them with my headlights. Other neighbours must’ve thought I was trying to push the car down the road. Eventually I did it, but by that time they’d roared off in a huff….
I don’t think our neighbours like us any more…
(Oh, and the picture on the right is not our house…!)