Any holidays planned?

And "what are you doing with yourself these days?" are two fine questions both of which I'm completely incapable of answering. They are my Achille's heel.

There isn't a question in the world you could ask me that derives as much hesitation, awkwardness and general social discombobulation than these two fine questions.

They actually wouldn't be so bad if they were asked in the middle of a conversation. I'd be OK with them then. I'd have "my eye in" as it were and have little problem stringing the few sentences together necessary to answer them both. But if you catch me cold with these two Q's boy do I turn into a babbling mess.

The truth is I don't have a job or take holidays. My life is a vocation. My life is a holiday. There's not one day in my life I don't enjoy anymore and that's the truth. I'm in the car business. I'm a gambler. I'm a ducker and diver. I'm not a plumber. Sometimes my pursuits send me on journeys which are like holidays. In fact I often treat them as such.

Life is for living and not for looking forward.

If you hate your job, leave your job. If you want a holiday do whatever it is you do on your holidays this weekend. If you want sunshine move out of Ireland. Life is so simple and yet we make it so hard.

Live in the present and the future will look after itself.

That's my take on it anyway. Life.

Meditation tapes to follow.

Traffic jam vulgarity.

There's few things in life that people can agree on unanimously but I suspect the dislike of traffic jams may just be one.

Dublin traffic is particularly bad. We get to see scouring faces, dismal, dewy weather and most of all, an abundance of mostly boring, always silver, cars.

You never quite know who's sat in the car next to you. Could be a millionaire. Could be your future spouse. Could be a murderer. Could even be all three? Today I'd be getting to meet one of my fellow commuters face to face.

Tiptoeing my way through three lanes of traffic on the Long Mile Road, the collision happened.

The screech rings through the air like the noise of a coke can scraped along the ground by a foot. It's the sound of two cars scratching against each other. One moving. One stationary. I, driving the moving car, feel every inch of the scrape like a nail against my skin. The motorist of the idle car can only furrow their brows and flood their brain with insults, accusations and general hatred towards me.

A friendly chat this would be not.

Like any deranged woman, neither a hoard of traffic nor the very real chance of death stopped her from diving out of her car, onto the main road, to confront me.

"You bett'r have insurance" screams the banshee as she makes for first the passenger and then the driver's side window, unaware of where I might actually be found in my vehicle.

Following a minute or so of abuse I finally shut the deranged woman up by pointing at the traffic which is starting to move around her.

We relocate to a nearby McDonalds where I once hosted my birthday to continue our discussion on the disrespect of youth today, boy racers and of course the uninsured driver.

"I've worked in the courts for four years." She says whilst shaking her head furiously. Such a righteous woman, hard to believe she didn't just have me arrested there and then for all my misgivings.

 

We needed a quote for the damage and it wasn't long before my Dad came to assess the repair costs.

"He needs to be thought a lesson" she says after we all agree a figure.

 

I guess I am lacking a bit in indecency.