I had a bit of trouble with my car recently. I'd been way out in the suburbs on a business trip, right across the other side of town. I was sitting at a red light, waiting for a green, when I happened to look in the rear vision mirror. There was a car approaching from behind at high speed.
One glance was all I need to see that there was no way that idiot was going to be able to stop before he was all over me. I couldn't accelerate as the cross traffic on the main road was quite heavy. My chosen option was to jam on the handbrake hard, open the car door, and step out and away from my car. I finished up three or four paces away, sheltered by a nice strong electricity pole, watching my car get rear ended and pushed into the cross traffic where it promptly got t-boned.
Like I said, I had car trouble. After the emergency vehicles had arrived I was invited down to the local cop-shop to give a statement. There were a number of injuries and the entire intersection had to be closed down, causing chaos with the traffic flow. The boys in blue were naturally interested in getting a statement from a surviving driver.
I'd signed an authorisation to have my car towed before I went to the cop shop so I didn't have to worry about that. I'd also rung my insurance while waiting around at the cop shop, sorting things out. The car was, I assured them, a complete write-off. They agreed I could use a hire car while waiting for the claim to go through.
My immediate problem on getting out of the police station was getting home. A taxi would cost a fortune. I'd probably get reimbursed by the insurance company but I didn't want the extra bother. Plus the local taxi company had said they were flat out and it might take an hour before they could get me. I said the hell with it, I'll take a train. Fortunately, the police station was reasonable adjacent to the train station. I strolled over and bought a ticket.
What with all the stuffing around it was getting quite dark. Evening had approached, twilight hovered around us, and the dark was approaching. The dark had actually arrived when the train pulled up. Seeing the gates at my home station were in the middle of the platform I naturally boarded at that approximate position. Crowded train. I was the only one in the carriage.
My solitary journey didn't last long. A couple of young ladies piled into my carriage at the next stop and sat opposite me. As soon as I saw them I thought Betty and Veronica. They were both quite pretty with a healthy, nubile, look. One was blonde and the other a brunette. Hence the names.
Now if two pretty young things get in a train and sit opposite of course you're going to look them over. They were nicely made up and I immediately surmised that they were going to a party, or out on the town at the very least. They were both wearing party dresses, carrying jackets in case it cooled down.
Now I'm not a prude, but there was no way I'd let my daughter out dressed like them. (Not that I have a daughter. Hell, I'm not even married. But the principle is the same.) The dresses were very nice, but they were, in my opinion, designed for women a little older and a little more sophisticated than these two. Looking at them, the adjective that popped to mind was tarts.
The problem, again in my opinion, was that the dresses were too short. Now I don't mind short dresses. I'm all in favour of my dates wearing short dresses, the shorter the better, but my dates would be travelling by car. These two young ladies were sitting on a train and I was amused to notice that when they sat down their dresses rode up, revealing a flash of panties whenever they wriggled around.
They were busy nattering to each other, typing away at their smart phones at the same time. I just settled back and wished the train would go faster.
Teach me to make foolish wishes. The train pulled up to a complete halt. At least they now have speaker system to tell the poor passengers what's going on.
"We apologise at the delay. There has been an accident at a level crossing. We will be delayed for approximately half an hour while the roadway is cleared."
That's railway speak for 'you're stuck here for the next hour or two'.
I groaned silently, leaned back and stared blankly in front of me. To give myself something to do I reviewed a problem I was having with a program I was trying to debug. Logically, it should have worked fine. Practically, it had a moving error. I mentally started going over possible causes.
"What are you fucking staring at," said in quite a sweet, but annoyed voice, came at me out of nowhere.
I blinked and snapped my attention back to the here and now, focusing on the two women. They were both glaring at me.
"I'm sorry, were you speaking to me?" I asked politely.
The brunette, the one I'd dubbed Veronica, rolled her eyes.
"You see anyone else in the bloody carriage?" she asked.
"Well, yes. You two. That's why I couldn't be sure you were addressing me. I'm afraid I didn't really hear what you said. My attention was elsewhere."
"Yeah, we noticed that, you pervert. You were staring at us so I asked you what you were fucking looking at."
I hadn't really been staring at them. I'd probably just been looking in their general direction and they assumed that they were the focus of my attention. I suppose I should just have mumbled an apology and looked elsewhere, but I was feeling a little fed up with the events of the day.
I ran my eyes over her, top to bottom, pausing to stare at her crotch rather rudely. Her legs were slightly parted and the short dress was letting me see her panties. From her I switched my gaze to blonde Betty and gave her the same once over. I then curled my upper lip slightly in a gesture of disdain.
"What am I looking at? Nothing much. Nothing much at all."
Both girls flushed. Betty from embarrassment, Veronica from anger.
"What's that supposed to mean?" snapped Veronica. "Do you think we're a couple of fucking tarts?"
"You'd know better than me what sort of tart you are," I observed, amused to see her flush deepen.
"Who the hell do you think you are you fucking asshole?" Veronica raged. "Think you're better than us just because you wear a suit and a tie? You're just the same as us, stuck on a fucking train."
"Only because I happened to wreck the Mercedes in a little accident," I told her. (I wish I did have had a Mercedes. There again, think of the pain in seeing it totalled?)
"Ooh, the posh man has a posh Mercedes," came the scornful comment. "Pity he can't fucking drive."
"You know, you have what my mother used to call a potty mouth. You look quite passable until you start to talk. Someone needs to teach you some manners."
"Yeah, right. And I suppose you're fucking going to be the one."
"Fucking, aye," chipped in her friend Betty. "There's nothing wrong with the way we fucking talk. Just because you talk like an asshole doesn't mean we have to."
