A day in the life of ...

Like any child, I always wondered if my life would make a good story - the answer is no.

The bits that aren't boring appear so contrived that I, as the reader, would have thrown the book against the wall*.

Take this morning as a case in point. I had a meeting a suburb away, so mindful of my desire to shed body fat and reduce my fuel budget, I walked there. I walked along a major arterial road for 30 minutes. About 10 minutes in, I noticed that I had overtaken one particular moving van three times. I was witnessing morning hour peak traffic for the first time. Every time a tram stopped, the cars had to stop. Every time the lights changed for a smaller road to feed in, the cars on the arterial road stopped.

Both times I mostly kept going because I was on the footpath and I could cross the smaller roads as soon as the cars moved on; I didn't have to wait for the lights to change. I actually started to pull ahead of the traffic at one point where I was one set of traffic lights in front of the moving van. He actually noticed this and was starting to exhibit signs of road rage and frustration. He went through two red lights just as I reached my destination.

The contrived portion of this story? My appointment was with Vic Roads - I now have a Victorian Drivers Licence.

This afternoon I was driving around in the middle of a storm. I learned that Victorian (or maybe just Melbourne) drivers have a different set of rules when its wet. It appears when it starts to rain, we ignore all the rules regarding right of way, traffic lights and when to pull out in front of other vehicles. You see in the wet it appears the only rule is get out my way or get hit. He with the cheapest car goes first.

I discovered today, I am no longer the terror of the highways I once was. I haven't been caught speeding in over 7 years. And compared to Melbourne drivers - I'm a yellow bellied coward!

I've become a responsible driver ..... even a sedate driver. My mum would be happy - if she believed it .....




* Actually I've only ever done this once. It was a murder mystery set in Ancient Rome and the writer described the banquet as containing brown sugar !!!!