Don’t Try This at Home

On any given day in Sydney or any other urban area – or, for that matter, on any point on the land masses of the world, there will be complete idiots in cars driving on the road. This is a fact of life. Most of the time they pass us by, sometimes only just missing, and we shake our heads, or our fists and we move on.
Today (I am horrified to admit) I was one of those complete idiots.
Oh;
the shame.
There is a context, and I will try and paint a fair picture… but the story, well she goes something like…
this.
I was driving home via my cunning, not so secret, back way and in doing so, while minding my own business I must add, became aware of another car very close on my tail. Or more precisely following Dolly, my starlet, far too close for comfort.
I have a tendency when this happens to gently apply the brake, not so much as actually to engage the car in slowing down, but enough to light up the rear of my car in an “I’m about to stop you bloody fool, so back off” kind of way.
This I duly did, to the usual good effect.
However, as I’m the kind of girl who generally drives with her foot gently resting on the clutch I was caught out by the fact I had not engaged my brain in advising my foot to return to the clutch from the brake after application of the aforementioned “back off you idiot” advanced driving technique.
And so, as I approached a traffic lit intersection I went to down-shift gears to slow down.
And slow down I did.
Particularly suddenly.
As in a rubber shedding, ear-splitting, oh-sh*t!, screeching halt.
FORTUNATELY, I HAD applied the “back-off” technique earlier, and I was fairly close to the left hand side of the road (for you US readers, that’s the correct side of the street down here) or else the woman behind me may well have connected with Dolly and caused all manner of damage.
But it was a 60 seconds before I was ready to get back in the flow. And a good 20 minutes before my heart rate had returned to normal.
Which does nothing to make me look less like one of those complete idiots in cars driving on Sydney roads.
At any given time.