Thought 'of' the Day - E is for Emb....

Yes, today there was embarrassment. I mean most days contain some form of embarrassment, but today's was particularly irritating. In my defence I would just like to say that I am a confident person and don’t worry about this to much. What I gather though, from a curious source (my eyes), is that many people are troubled by this significantly more. Just last week, in London, the tube station I was at had closed. I was with a whole clump of people who sighed in annoyance at learning this – but we were all shown onto an ‘Underground Replacement’ Bus – and you are told that it will take you to the next station. One unfortunate fellow, with us from the outset happened to ask the driver – "So where does this bus stop, does it by any chance stop at the next tube station?" I can’t tell you how many sniggers that, in almost Mexican wave proportions exploded throughout the bus! This poor guy (we should not berate him, even though it is against my instincts not to) had obviously forgotten the reason that he was on the bus in the first place.

So there you have it, we all suffer at times from needless embarrassment. Which brings it back to me. Now where I live in a small town in south-west England we have a main street that run’s through the heart of the town. It’s where the majority of shop’s can be found, and as a consequence of that the most people roaming the street. Now before I stumble across the finish line for today, much to the relief of you and I, people seem to enjoy beeping their car horns. This is for a wide variety of reasons, as you are most probably aware. But have you ever found, like me that whenever a car beeps at someone in the street, as innocent shoppers we all turn around as if by reflex to glare at the exact car. This alone is of course not too amazing but even when a street is full of cars we still work out which one it is. Much to the humiliation of the regretful ‘beeper’. Another thing, most cars have an easy way to make a ‘beep’ or ‘hoot’ if you prefer. A casual swing of a hand, a deft touch of a finger, causes a noise sufficient enough to effect a heart attack upon one of the older members of the community, or literally zap a person from their bike.

You see while slowly making my way through the main street I sighted some friends making their way into town. I tried intently to give them a quick beep as if to say hello, the horn didn’t work, I pressed harder, still passing them, still nothing. Then finally as all chance of hailing them goes, and practically making contact with the drivers airbag in getting the thing to work – bang – a massive eruption of ‘beep’, and all it does is attract someone that I don’t know to look at me. This is where the embarrassment comes in. A complete stranger stares at me, and sees an expression on my face that looks not dissimilar to one you would wear if a Land Rover had just ran over your foot. That’s what I looked like – incidentally the facial expression was created by the strength required to make the flaming thing sound.

What lesson’s can we draw from this? When buying a new car make sure that not only does it have a minimum of 10 cup holders and electric heated wing mirrors, but also that it has a horn that is so easy to blast a fly could do it. Then you’ll avoid the public embarrassment of looking like you should have been wearing a nappy.