Beep-beep-BEEEP!

I very rarely use the horn in our car, or in any car I drive, in fact I don’t even know where it is in my daughter’s car. When I do use it, it’s usually a warning pip-pip if someone seems to be about to back into me, or to remind someone in front that the lights have changed from red to green and they can go, or sometimes to say cheerio to friends as I’m driving away,  but I never ever use it in anger or annoyance.

However… today I used the horn twice. I had picked someone up in a carpark which I didn’t know very well, and was slowly making an awkward turn towards the awkward exit, when another car nosed its way in. I stopped immediately but inadvertently touched the horn which unusually responded straight away and made a little squeaky noise. It was hardly any noise at all, if anything it sounded like my warning ‘pip’ and in fact it would have been justified as a warning pip as the tiny miserable old lady driving the other car might not have seen me. She gave me such a terrible look and I mouthed sorry, held up my hands and smiled – to which she gave me an even worse look. What a miserable old baggage!!

It amused me though and I set off again, this time to go and get some petrol. At the petrol station I was parked behind a white van where a young guy, probably in his twenties, shorts, work boots, t-shirt seemed totally bamboozled by how to operate the pump. I could have bipped my horn then to tell him to hurry, but I wasn’t in a rush so I just waited patiently. I don’t think he got any fuel in the end, but jumped into his van and drove off. I wondered if perhaps the pump wasn’t working, but yes it was, perfectly!

As I was driving home I came to a roundabout. It has traffic lights and they were green so I whizzed round behind the car in front and was just about to exit when from nowhere a small blue car shot across in front of me, crossing from left to right. I stood on my brakes and screeched to a halt in a cloud of dust, and luckily the driver behind me did the same otherwise I would have been hit! The little blue car shot off across the edges of the central reservation and disappeared. I did hit the horn this time as s/he sped off, I really hit the horn this time!