Drag racers

I hear them sometimes, late-late Saturday night/early-early Sunday morning, when the air is still. Or maybe it's when there's a slight breeze blowing from there, that death-trap ribbon of tar.

Whichever it is, sometimes I hear them, the sounds of their cars roaring at way-too-high speed. I can almost taste the testoerone on the night air. The illegal drag-racers taking over the quiet early morning city highway.

I've never seen them, but I've read the stories in the paper. The ones where they've killed themselves showing off how much bigger their engine is than the guy's next to them. Bigger engine, shinier wheels, more power, slam into a lamp post and all that's left is a glinting silver mag wheel, winking as life drains out of someone far too young, a streak of adrenaline on a cold tar road.

I heard them last night and sent a little prayer of sorts to the gods or whoever looks after us to keep them safe, those young urban cowboys doing their thing, thinking of their mothers, worrying at home.

Of car-buying and salesmen

I need a new car. A sad, but true fact. My sweet little aubergine has developed some, well, incontinence problems and so is starting to smell less-than-savoury, and there was that incident of refusing to go, in rush-hour traffic, in the fast lane. So, yes, the result: the search for a new (secondhand) car.

Some back history, to make my tale of woe a little more sensical. Cars do not interest me. At all. This, in fact, is an understatement. I know nothing about them, and couldn't give a hoot about how much horsepower (or whatever) they have, as long as they get me from A to B. I have been known to answer to the irritating question: "What car does he drive?" with "A blue one." Often, I have been wrong even with that, the car in question being a brilliant red one. I can, I'm proud to say, discern a car from, say... a bicycle, but that's about the sum total of my vehicular knowledge.

A couple of weeks ago, when The Pond was here, we trundled off on a blustery Saturday morning to town where the car places live. We were bombarded with all shapes and sizes, all the 'best on the market', completely trustworthy, fabulously shiny... car salesmen. Before we even got to the cars. The car salesman cliche, I am here to tell you, is no lie.

So you see my dilemma. Enter: C, thank goodness. A friend who IS interested amd is fabulously organised and gathered together information on all the possibilities (with me, I'm sure very irritatingly asking, after glazing over during the 'specs', "But what colour is it?")

This morning I am going with her, to another place where secondhand cars live, waiting for new owners. I am going to do my best not to ask what colour they are. This should be easy, as I will be able to see the colour. I will also try my hardest not to glaze over when they talk 'specs' and promise to try not to make up stories about the greasy car salesman's personal life in my head, behind my glazed-over eyes.

I wonder if I'll manage?