Woman off the edge

Grrrrrrrrrrr, grrrrrrrr oh lordy am I an angry woman these days. It may be because the dissertation write-up is getting to me or it may be working in an officially failing organisation, perhaps it is both. But whatever the reason, I am getting decidedly cranky – take this morning on the way to work for example. I am driving along kind of late to work (as the dissertation requires nightly word mangling in the wee small hours when all in the house have gone to bed) admiring the Scottish countryside as one does (well, it is all so green and pretty) when I get to the little humpy, dumpy, one track stone bridge. I check to see no traffic and begin to mosey my way over, when I get almost half way across this BMW 4WD kind of thingy hurtles up the other side and stops inches – I mean inches from me. Hello – I am already on the bridge, is this woman blind??? So anyway there we are on a single lane bridge and she flicks her shiny yummy-mummy hair in a self important way and motions in a you-go-back-there kind of gesture, this would be a bit difficult as there are three other cars behind me and I don’t necessarily appreciate being wafted by her condescending limp hand movements. I smile (in a friendly kind of way, no teeth bared yet) and shake my head and motion at the 3 cars behind me. She flicks her hair in a slightly more self-important way and then gestures the same gesture, I shake my head. She can’t believe it, here she is, in her big swanky car that could transport a small nation in the back seat on her way to do very important coffee with other women-who-have-had-children-but-have-retained-their-flat-tummies and there is what looks like a troll in a Renault Megane waving and gurning like a complete idiot! I can tell what she’s thinking - doesn’t that peasant person in the other car know that trolls go under bridges and not ON them??? S’anyway she obviously has the most important places to go and I am heading for work, only given the way things are at the moment I am not that keen to get there. So she begins looking cross in a very snotty manner and I think to myself hmmmmmm you’re keen to get where you are going but not so keen as to reverse, and I am not keen to get where I am going, so what’s a little old librarian that looks like a troll with floaty hair to do? Especially as I am an angry, grumpy librarian with hair that would never, just never flick (too floaty), I am not that kind of yummy mummy (I’m only yummy if I have sat on toast or cereal and it is sticking to me) and I have a vendetta (deep rooted jealousy thing) against bimbos that drive huge cars that cost more than many peoples houses along tiny, skinny, little roads where they just don’t fit. By now she is looking distinctly frosty so the limb-waving loony look is obviously not working on her, still I am made of strong stuff (solidified coffee granules in these days of constant study) and start to examine her – I could spend all day just idly imagining her life – big hunky rugger-bugger husband with one syllable name, 3 ballet dancing, dainty, little girls with pretentious names, say Poppy, Floppy and Hoppy (what happens when these kids hit fifty and they are sad and fat in a one bedroom council house and they spend all their days talking to the t.v and drinking vodka – will they hate their delicious yummy-mummy and one syllable-monikered daddy who gave them such silly names that all their lives they have been snickered at by librarians children??? especially as they are names more suited to their pet rabbits, and their lives are just completely ruined, ruined), oh but I am digressing and there is a Labrador and big house and au pair and everything….. But heck, I don’t really want to go to work, I could sit here all day, in fact I would prefer it, just how do I convey this to Madam?

So, then I realise, I have the perfect weapon right next to me in my bag, and so I lean slowly over and withdraw my knitting. I pick the project up just so she can see it through my steering wheel and slowly knit a couple of stitches (well it is 100% alpaca – one does tend to want to savour such gorgeous buttery yarn as one knits it, so mustn’t rush), I glance at her to make sure she can see what I am doing and her face has changed colour slightly. Now I don’t know if she is desperate for her colonic or if she has a deep-seated phobia about knitters but I can see she has definitely changed somehow, so I go back to concentrate on the knitting and do another 10 or so stitches and then look up again.

She gives in – she puts the huge nonsensical chugging beast in reverse and slowly inches back (maybe she didn’t know she had that gear – perhaps she only has to go forwards as other people get out of her way all the time), so I drop the knitting and zip past her with at least 6 cars on my tail.

See – work and study are not good for me, normally I’d have sidled the car into some bushes to get outta the womans way and to make for an easy life, more importantly, knitting is the ultimate weapon and the moral of the story is she who knits, wins and if only all politicians knitted we’d have world peace.

I like to think the experience did the woman some good.