Monday, February 15, 2010

Teleportation device needed asap (pref. w/ radio).


Lately, since I've been leaving the house almost every single day - albeit mainly to buy shoes (Thank you Zeus for Stave Madden), but also to work on all sorts of exciting projects with just a pinch of introducing some honest American English to unsuspecting souls in a (Whoa!) classroom situation (it gets better...) with moi actually in charge (when you say it all together like that the result is quite scary and unpalatable, I know) - I've again been subjected to one of the things I don't particularly miss from my life in Mexico City (Yes I do! I miss it all!), but that very likely accounted for quite a few months out of the couple year span.

Yup. Traffic. Trafico.

I have such fond memories of inching down Reforma, one of the main arteries of Mexico City, for hours on end in my burgundy shoebox of a Chevy with zero air conditioning. Wearing exhaust fumes like a fine perfume. Buying all of my cleaning products at intersections. Chatting to beggars in broken espaƱol. Singing along to the songs on that weird Mariachi radio station without actually knowing the words (cept for Cielito Lindo. Everyone knows Cielito Lindo. Besides it's just a whole lot of ay ay ay ay and then some more ay ay ay). Watching my suction cup Jesus gently sway in the furiously circulating lukewarm air. And believe it or not, sometimes playing sudoku. Honest.

And here I am again, stuck in traffic.

Granted, regardless of still conforming to the universally accepted definition of traffic (as opposed to the Finnish definition which can be loosely understood as: "Shit. There's someone else on the road at the same time as me! Holy Cow! I must watch out now."), the traffic here in Jozi is nowhere near the kind of sea of ebbing and flowing waves of chaos associated with Mexico City. Still, it's something you sit in for longer than you had initially intended or hoped. Until you run out of boogers to fish out of your nose, and that weird, red something between your teeth that looks like tomato peel although you can't remember when you last had anything with tomato in it just does not enthrall you like it did a minute ago.

But traffic's different here. Simply not slow enough to play sudoku, put on makeup, tweeze my eyebrows (I don't really, just putting it out there as a potential), work out what the hell that black stuff underneath my nail is and why can't I wash it off, come up with seven different ways of wearing my faux-hawk with the help of multiple mirrors available in my car, or make up stories of people who have those stupid 'baby on board' suction-cup thingies on the rear window in which (the stories that is) they always have dark family secrets or possibly an extra toe/finger/other magnificent appendage (never claimed to have a normal imagination).

Too fast for anything but radio.

Thus, I'm actually finally coming to my point.

Yes, there fokken was one all along. There really was! (Well, okay. Maybe not a point, but more of a theme. A unifying factor. Yes.)  

And my point is a series of questions to you people:

How loud is it acceptable to sing along to 50 Cent's Baby By Me? Does 'doing that weird vogue movement' with your head make any difference? Is Baby By Me the new Baby Got Back? How frikken awesome is P!nk? Why don't more people sing loudly in their cars? What is it called when you kind of dance along behind the steering wheel? What do you do to kill time in traffic?

I know. I do. I blame the mother-in-law. Maybe you should too.

10 comments:

Leenie said...

Sing in your car as LOUD as you want. And dance...head shoulders hands~~anything you can move and still maintain occasional contact with the street. It scares away weirdos and t'ell with the rest of 'em.

Sarah said...

Hubby and I have car specific dances and we always sing loudly (and badly), sometimes to made up songs that Hubby produces on the fly. It amuses us AND everyone else in traffic, so it really is a win-win.

My name is Erin. said...

Not only do I sing loudly in the car, but my kids do, too. Nothing makes me more proud than to hear my baby boy singing along with TI and Rhianna or Justin Timberlake. I'm such a good mom. : ) Oh, and for the record, I do not have a "Baby on Board" sign. I do however have a sticker touting Wind Powered Energy and my belief that we need more of it. I'd love to be stuck in traffic with you, singing at the top of my lungs. But it will have to be there, because thankfully we don't have enough traffic here to get stuck in it.

Lisa-Marie said...

I know a whole family who don't sing in the car. they don't even have music. They are WEIRD. Singing loudly is your car is awesome. We do out of tune singing too!

CrazyCris said...

I actually learnt to drive in Mexico City! I remember that on the rare occasions I got to put the car in 3rd gear it was like "whoah! too fast!!!" :p

Not From Lapland said...

Blame everything on the mother-in-law, makes life so much easier.

Melanie said...

I am so extremly happy to realize that there are others out there who, like me, enjoy and practice singing loudly in the car. Well I sorta yell singing-ly in the car. Keep it up! Its good for the soul! and yes, it is your mother-in-laws fault. It always is

Fidgeting Gidget said...

I love to sing in the car. My favorites include:

Rockstar by Nickelback
Can I Get A....by Jay-Z
Anything by Kid Rock
Brad Paisley tunes OF COURSE
and my new favorite, Ice Cream Paint Job by Dorrough. If you haven't heard it, listen. It's hysterical

Unknown said...

I have been taking public transportation in NYC for over 4 years now, but I used to have a car in the burbs. And when I had internships in the summer I had to commute in traffic rush hour. I hated it. I would get sleepy and my eyes would start to close and then HONK. OH sorry, drive, and then kind of my mind would wander while I thought about HONK. Oh jesus sorry. Yea, I like the train cuz I can just fall asleep. And people never honk at me. Well, almost never.

kanishk said...

I have car specific dances and we always sing loudly (and badly), sometimes to made up songs that Hubby produces on the fly. It amuses us AND everyone else in traffic, so it really is a win-win.
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