2017.03.29 Easily Amused

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In my 20's I owned a variety of cars. They ranged from the incredibly-shitty and incredibly-charismatic-but-shitty to not-shitty-but-boring and not-shitty-but-abused. The thing that they all shared was that I flogged each and every one of them an awful lot. Most of the time I was driving I was actively searching for the limits of traction. Mostly lateral, being as this was in low-power vehicles on twisty mountain roads.

This made me a terrible driver. Skilled (eventually, I like to think) but a terrible member of the motoring demographic. And I wasn't alone - there were many of us. Are many of us - though I like to lie to myself and think I've mostly grown out of that. But I know the type. I can recognize my tribe.

-ahem-

So, today, I was trundling home in my boring minivan in a mostly-moderate manner. I mean, yeah, it's a minivan. And tall for its class. It is not build for speed. The road I prefer to take home is pleasantly twisty, but light traffic means that I usually just get to meander and sing along to Disney Princess Movie Soundtracks with Violet in the back. Except today, I roll up on the one traffic light along the road, and the two cars in front of me both depart with right turns while the light is red.

I beam. Open road for a short stretch of twisties. Not that I mean to go terribly fast - because minivan - but at least I won't be limited by other vehicles.

Then, as the light turns green, a beat up little BMW 318ti (E36) appears from the right-hand cross road. He had the briefest pause to see the pathetic minivan lumbering across, and I just know that if he goes for it he's one of us. He goes for it. The little Bimmer squats under acceleration and he's going.

This is where I point out that I'm a bad person. Because I can all-too-well imagine what it's like to be that kid in the kind-shitty but kinda-quick little car with some smugness about the relative alacrity possessed by minivans. So it's hilarious to me to speed up to make his injection into the lane in front of me somewhat less comfortable. And, exactly as is right and proper for our tribe, he decides to apply additional speed to leave the lame old minivan behind.

Because I am indeed a bad person, I further decide that it would be even more hilarious to have the giant wobbly minivan keep up with him and maintain the most mocking distance possible (not too close, but so very definitely goading). Of course I also have a few advantages - I know this piece of road exceedingly well, I have a fully-modern chassis with brand-new rubber, and I have exhaustive hours practicing this kind of driving.

So I chase him, a wee bit faster than I originally meant to go. Belting out "You're Welcome" from Moana with Violet. Then we come up on the sweeper that I so dearly love, and know that I have to slow down. But the 318ti discovers the severity of the turn a fraction of an instant later than he would have liked and a hint of understeer makes him go all Fred Astaire on his brakes which lets me coast up on him at safe speed with ease - and I give a bellowing gut laugh at his aura of shame. The Schleppenwagen's turbocharged 2.0L lets us keep up with his anaemic 1.8L out of the sweeper, cementing that shame as Violet asks why I'm laughing.

"Because daddy is easily amused, sweetie." And supping on the tear-soaked tattered egos of others makes me happy.