why I don't drive

I'm known for many things: my charming disposition, my way with grilling most meats, my attachment to cream cheese, my extensive library, my odd predilection to remember random passages/information I read in some leftist newspaper I found in a city alley months ago but almost always forget where I am and sometimes where I am going. Everyone's favourite trait though is that I don't drive. At the ripe old age of 27, edging dangerously close to 28, then even closer to 30, I am without a license. This state has unfolded in a variety of ways: frequent close proximity to public transport, friendly friends, an almost obsessive foreknowledge that I will perish in a car crash, the unbearable truth that I will never get my hands on the ghostbuster station-wagon. Yet, there is more to the story. A list:

·      I’m too cool.

·      I need to be known for at least one annoying trait, for otherwise I have none.

·      Someone needs to be the designated lift weasel.

·      I’m a Triple A-Plus Mark Seven Walker. Meaning: I recklessly stroll into a strut purpose designed to take me places, like the shops, park, or the spaces between Time.

·      I worship at the altar of the Walk.

·      A gypsy named Olysandra in a prophetic cask-wine dream foretold of The Blonde Man Who Should Not Drive, sometimes referred to in gypsy culture simply as, The Blonde. He is an awe-inspiring figure of natural movement; the harbinger of The Stride; the final bastion of The Leggéd Shuffle. I am this man.

·      I am a defender of fossil fuels. I believe them best left in their natural habitat, not in the slave service of the car.

·      Cars have a tendency to startle me.

·      I’m sure cars are haunted by (literally) blank-faced Papua New Guinean children with self-esteem issues. They are their doomed vessels to the afterworld, which we are burdened with never arriving at.

·      I have the spatial awareness of a blinded-folded, thrice spun around, drunk toddler with Attention Deficit Disorder and a severe fear of not being able to see, while being attacked by a falcon This is not a state conducive to driving a car.

·      Steering wheels are one of life’s great mysteries.

·      I’d probably be prone to ramming people with very little reason. Cut me off: ram. Beep your horn at me: ram. Drive slowly: ram. Drive quickly: ram. Friendly wave: ram. Old lady walking across the street with her basset hound, a portrait of her deceased war hero husband and an armful of knitting: ram.

·      They call me Angry Dave for many reasons, and I’m sure driving will bring forth the Angriest of the Angry Dave’s. My eloquent hate-filled rage, though, would be something to behold: I’m thinking ‘Cock Goose,’ ‘you Bryan Fucker’ or ‘Empty Arse Sink’ will be frequently uttered; as in, 'you morally inept cock Goose! Go and fuck Bryan you vapid, empty arse sink!'

·      I don’t have a license.