Welcome to the city

Here we are in a proper big city and I think we are responding very well by having a road rage incident AND reporting a burglary, all in the same week.  Both were embarrassingly minor incidents, but I feel they make us true city residents.

On Tuesday the girls and I made the cross town trek to pick up our dog from the kennel she’d stayed in while we moved into the new house, at the precise time of the day a massive downpour hit the city and everyone decided to leave work early to “beat the traffic”, thereby creating the traffic. 

After an hour, and only at the start of the return journey, a melt down in the back seat was underway.  

The girls had moved beyond boredom and were simply lazily thumping each other while giggling hysterically. The dog lay on the passenger seat with a resigned look on her face, and I did my best to not hurl the sat nav out the window.  Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, it insisted on telling me I would be home in 9 minutes.  I know its just a hunk of metal, but if my speed hasn’t reached 20kph for an hour, 9 minutes to cover the same distance again seemed insanely optimistic. 

Suddenly, I realised there was a transit lane to my left, for cars with two or more passengers.  All I needed to do was cross one lane of traffic.  I started indicating.  Traffic inched forwards, but the car in the next lane didn’t let me in.  I inched forward too, pointing the car towards the miniscule gap.  My 5 year old suggested I toot the horn, so I patiently explained that if I did that the other driver might get cross with me.  The other car inched forward again, pointedly not letting me in.  I tooted the horn.  The driver, who I now realised I had actually let in to the traffic about 200 metres earlier, glared at me and started to wind down his window.  Ooh good, an actual shouting match was going to follow.  I put the passenger side window down too, just in time to hear him sneeringly shout “where are you planning to go?”.  ”To the transit lane” I yelled back over the rain.  ”You only have ONE person in your car” he roared, aggressively gesturing with one finger.  ”I have THREE” I screamed, pointing at the two now silent girls at the back seat.  ”Well I’m sorry, I didn’t see them” he bellowed.  That being the most insincere apology I’d ever heard, I could only retort “Well UP YOUR BUM!” and then promptly wind up the window so his outraged response was lost to me.  He let me in, I zoomed up the transit lane, and probably shaved at least 60 seconds off my journey home.  Once I’d recovered slightly I started laughing hysterically, mortified that I’d actually shouted “up your bum”, possibly for the first time since primary school.  The girls joined in, I’m not sure if their laughter was genuine or nervous, but the rest of the journey was lengthy, but relaxed.

The burglary was only a burglary by legal definition.  Upon moving into the house, we discovered 5 paving-stone shaped holes in the front garden.  We tactfully asked the previous owner of the house if they’d taken the paving stones, and they had not.  The man of the house decided to report the theft to the police, in case we decided to make an insurance claim or if they ever happened to turn up.  The police, to our amazement, actually took it seriously and there ensued a lengthy conversation about exactly where the stones had been located, leading to the conclusion that because they were behind a two foot high wall, it was in fact a burglary.  This meant that the Crime Scene Investigation unit would be coming around!  This was highly exciting news, we were greatly looking forward to luminol testing and orange crime scene tape, and possibly further interviews (eg, “When did the stones go missing?”   Erm, don’t know, before we moved in.  ”What did they look like?”  Erm, don’t know, never looked at them.  ”How much are they worth?”  No idea sorry, didn’t buy them…).  They even offered a referral to Victim Support, which was declined.  

You can only imagine our disappointment when a week later a letter from the Police arrived advising that as there were no leads to follow up, the case was being filed.  We are now a mere manilla folder in a large warehouse, and a very thin manilla folder at that.   

Despite these minor brushes with civil disobedience and crime, we’re adapting very well to our new surroundings.  The weather is wonderful, the girls are happy, and the dog spends her day defending the house against tradespeople and the neighborhood cats.  The cats taunt her by sitting in the pool enclosure, while she goes mad barking and throwing herself at the gate.  

I’ve only had one unintentional drive over the harbour bridge, when I was naughtily talking on my cellphone while driving.  Ironically, I was having difficulty being heard while asking if my hearing aid had been found at a supermarket I’d visited the day before.  By the time I bleated out “Have.  You.  Found.  My.  HEARING.  AID”  for the third time I was irrevocably in the wrong lane, and over the bridge I went.  At this point I gave up on finding either my hearing aid or my way home (the former was never found, the latter was found eventually) and focussed on finding a bottle shop to buy a large bottle of gin.  Finally home, I was able to reflect on the fact that while your entire world can seem to change, your enjoyment of a gin and tonic does not.