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“Do you get many idiots, driver?”
“Not really… I just get a lot of people, in a fairly… wide range of flavours.”
That’s my usual, somewhat self amusing, quietly spoken spiel.
The truth is, that the amount of good flavours far outnumber the amount of idiot flavours.
Here are a couple of examples of good flavours to show the sort of wide range of, ok customers.

 

 

Two little girls, with a shine for the driver
Both girls hopped along the pavement towards the front of the car. As I looked up and across to them, they both beamed, glanced towards each other, looked back at me, beamed, glanced towards each other… and so this pattern continued until they reached the rear door.

Mum was in pursuit and when the door was opened in jumped the girls followed by mum…. at least mum was ready to follow into the car, but there was a blockage… both girls had stopped in the middle of the back seat area and had not sat down. I knew this, as was clearly aware of two little people breathing, just behind my left ear.

”Ello.” I said, still looking forward and prepping the in-car computer.
The girls stayed where they were. 2cm from my ear.

“Move up.” Mums faint voice called from still outside.
The breathes remained in the same place, so, still tweaking the computer, I moved things along.

“You need your seat belts on. Done anything exciting today?”
The blockage vanished as they bounced into their seats, mum followed but found she now couldn’t get a word in, as the car was filled with tales of the girl’s day of making pictures… pictures of everything.

All settled into seats, the girls had clearly taken a little shine to me… chirping away. I couldn’t see them as they were too low, but I could see mum’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. She was smiling, looking at me and subtlety nodded her head sideways towards the girls, then forwards towards me. My smile squeezed at my eyes, which she would see… nothing was said… it was one of those great atmospheres you get when kids are in a safe arena… then free to chirp out what’s on their minds.

After 10 minutes of non-stop chirping, a totally new subject flicked up… along the lines of “I could be their dad if I wanted”.
Me and mum’s silent inter-mirror communication switched to the still silent visual expression resembling “YIKES!” and we both had a chuckle as we swiftly brokered some sort of verbal curve.

We managed to morph the subject into a random one of “being cool”… which both girls took to and it wasn’t too long before it was all accepted that… the journey was great fun… the car was cool… mum was cool… the driver was cool… both girls were cool… all their pictures were cool.

On leaving the car, the girls hopped away down the pavement, then paused to look at each other and both lifted their hands up in front of their faces… they were making “sunglasses” with rounded fingers… their new found fun for today… meaning… COOL.

The girls and mum together… were a cool flavour.

 

 

 

Boozed-up Tommy
Even amongst the flavour of a drunken human, good flavours of character can dominate. I’m not into boozing, but tell this tale here, as the majority of people encountered, that have alcohol are not the outrageous antisocial idiots, as reported in the papers.

Late in the evening, he lumbered out towards the car. After a second or two, pulling on a front door handle. I tooted the horn… to get his attention, as the car parked in front was empty and thankfully locked.
As he turned towards me, I noted his expression…. one of those ugly but beautiful people, with clear eyes and an amicable expression blazoning from his face.

He reminded me of how Tommy Cooper looked. He seems to have pinched one of his expressions as well. He was so drunk he has little ability for voice.

“Azz zazz zazz zazzz za”
That was his confirmation of area he needed to go.

A few more attempts to check address was responded to with his same wording, but in varying numbers of zazz’s.
On the in-car computer was his address…. auto got from him being a regular and his phone number giving his address, already held on our data base.

My method for customers in this condition… is to keep them talking… responding… to give me a live streaming sense of their condition… and to keep them awake.

As responses from ‘Tommy’ were poor, though his face was still beaming, I flicked around for another plan.
”You’ll have to show me the way… Point the way… Can you point?”

He briefly raised his arm ahead. That was reassuring. That’ll work.
”Point then… Keep Pointing”

His arm came up to horizontal and his finger was as pointy as pointy. That was enough for me. We set off. Each time his arm dropped, I just said “point!”… and up it came, accompanied by a few zazz’s and a new flash of beaming face.

Didn’t really need the arm for directions, which was just as well. For the first two roundabouts we needed the third exit, but according to ‘Tommy’, his pointing went to the first exit.

It didn’t take much to work out the tilt around the corner was too much to hold his arm from swinging off to the side. As his arm swung, he added a new word. “zerr”. When I made the correct choice anyway, he would resume the zazz’s….

… and so he was returned home, successfully, to an in-car tune of zerr’s and zazz’s and only needed the occasional “point!”.

 
 
 

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