Tuesday, 28 December 2010

Friendly Word of Advice #5

Imagine you're on a motorway. You're driving. It's a beautiful calm pleasant spring day with a clear blue sky and lovely white clouds. It's all going well, everyone is cruising and you ease into second nature driving .. not giving a conscious thought to the driving at all... instead enjoying the moment, focussing on you and your passenger and the music in the car player..

Make sure you're not the milonga idiot.

But then ...

1. The car in front is wobbling in its lane. Cause for worry. What's the state of mind of that driver? Raise internal alert and keep and eye on him. Damn - that's spoilt my tranquil drive! You can't now focus on what your passenger is saying and you certainly can't listen to the music.

2. The car in front is now jerking and jumping from side to side, threatening to jump lanes. He doesn't actually do it .. but his movements are so big and threatening he might just. You can't relax. The cars around him start to move away, driving defensively. The maniac has upset everyone's relaxation and put them all on alert and stressed them out. Not fun. The idiot hasn't actually jumped lanes or cut anyone up, or even crashed into anyone, but his current behaviour makes the possibility quite likely. Forget music or conversation, all thoughts are now on preserving your passengers limbs.

3. Now the idiot has actually jumped across lanes and is swinging back and forth taking up multiple lanes. Although he can't physically take up more than one lane, the fact that he's manoeuvring across so many so quickly and unpredictably effectively means no one else can use any other lanes in a relaxed frame of mind. How selfish is that? And the idiot is totally blissfully ignorant of the impact of his driving on everyone else's tranquillity and the overall traffic flow. Your panicked thoughts are only about preserving your partner's life.

4. Could it get worse? Yes. The idiot has now decided to slow down and grind to a complete halt. In the middle lane of a major motorway. Watch the horrific pile-up ...

Make sure you're not the selfish milonga idiot - totally blissfully ignorant of the detrimental effect on the dancers around you. Sure, you and your partner may be fine .. but half the milonga floor isn't.