Letter From America: I Must Slow Down
...Gabriel says, "You need to slow down," and then, as demanded by the particular occasion, gives me a sane reason to ease my lead boot off the accelerator pedal to at least the level required by law.
However, Shabriri counters sanity with, "Going for slow is for sissies. Put your clog down hard and show ‘em whose the Racemeister!" and away I go, hurtling up to a high speed as the fuel gauge needle hurtles down to a squandered nothing...
But the effervescent Ronnie Bray is finding that economic need, fostered by rising petrol prices, is modifying his driving habits.
To read more of Ronnie's glorious prose please click on Letter From America in the menu on this page.
I address the sense of urgency that overtakes me whenever I sit behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. I know it is irrational, but in spite of my determination to drive at a reasonable and economical speed, I find myself slipping back into all the bad habits I embraced when I was a boy racer.
My lack of self-control is also evident in other important areas of my life. For example, when I used to buy a tube of Rowntree’s Fruit Gums, or a quarter of Yorkshire Mixture, each time I popped one of the delicious bon-bons into my mouth I made a pledge to myself that I was going to suck it until it was no more than a speck before I set my eager molars loose on it.
That was the plan, but my natural voracious instincts took over and it was napped to death in a nonce by my manic molars. Another of my firm resolves turned to dust and blown away on the wind.
There is another instance I will share, and this one concerns my doggies, Frankie and Belle. We are extremely careful about what we feed them, because we do not want them turning into plastic table tops or into waste disposal units. This extreme care has made it an unwritten household law that we do not give them dog food with fillers in it, nor do we fatten them on human food.
That being said, on those occasions when either Gay or I are eating a sandwich, despite the oft-cited "Human Food Law enacted Rex et Regina RonGay Annie’s dominoes 2004 acta canus forbidius humanus noshii" being in full force, and in spite of my re-avowing my determination not to hand feed human food to our darlings even when the pair of beauties sits patiently and expectantly looking into my eyes with what can only be described as adoration and hope, their gazes darting occasionally to the sandwich in my hand to confirm that it still exists, as I approach the end of my munching I feel my resolve start to quake, crumble, shudder down to nothing, and despite my best intentions, I find myself involuntarily saving the bottom edge crust and breaking it in equal halves – you know how equality matters to the little ones – and my arms robotically extending towards the fluffy ones, with the offerings gripped tight in my outstretched hands, and into the grateful maws of our pleasant babes.
None of that is directly linked to the subject of this essay, except that it demonstrates that my actions are not always under the control of my will. I do not believe that ‘I am under the control of a mad doctor in Manchester,’ as a home made badge worn by a lady I met in Southampton declared, but there is direct evidence of a contrary force at work within that interferes with my voluntarily selected options, as the foregoing illustrate.
As the preacher said, "I told you all that, so that I can tell you this," because in each occasion when my inner demons rob me of my moral agency, the result is always remarkably similar. It is a struggle between the angel sitting on my left shoulder, and the demon sitting on my right one.
Gabriel says, "You need to slow down," and then, as demanded by the particular occasion, gives me a sane reason to ease my lead boot off the accelerator pedal to at least the level required by law.
However, Shabriri counters sanity with, "Going for slow is for sissies. Put your clog down hard and show ‘em whose the Racemeister!" and away I go, hurtling up to a high speed as the fuel gauge needle hurtles down to a squandered nothing.
I cannot begin to tell you how often I have made up my mind not to speed, but to hum along at a rate that will increase my fuel economy and costs at the same time as it reduces my stress and bank balance, only to let Shabriri take the wheel, and the gas pedal, whist Gabriel slips into the back seat and puts on his seat belt.
Well, for the past couple of weeks I have cut down my speeding to the legal limit. Not because Gabriel has cudgelled Shabriri into submission, and not because I have had a sudden infusion of sanity, nothing as exciting as that! My conversion to sane speeds, in common with many of my fellow motorists who have also been persuaded to lighten the load on their gas pedals, is a direct result of looming bankruptcy!
This fast coming condition is not brought on by my failure to invest wisely, for I have no stocks and bonds. In fact, I am not even sure I know what they are. The miraculous transmogrification is due to none other cause than the rising price of petrol, a commodity that Americans call ‘gas.’
I was touring Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Washington State in the spring of 1998 when the price of petrol at US pumps went up to a dollar a gallon for the first time. Now I watch pump prices hoping to save a cent or two on each gallon, noting that it is approaching the four dollar mark.
It creeps up little by little almost every day. The approach is slow, but certain. If a carnivorous behemoth was approaching your town at the same rate as petrol costs are rising, your best bet would be getting out of town at a rate exceeding that of the monster’s getting into town velocity.
Although it is not widely known, there is often a direct connection between apparently unrelated factors. For example, during the nineteen-thirties, the decrease in the birth rate in Great Britain was in inverse proportion to the rise in pig iron production in the USA.
In the case of my two ton, five litre, and eight cylinder petrol guzzling dog kennel, the reduction in my driving speed is directly tied to the cost of fuel. What angels could not do; what fruit gums, humbugs, and dog-coveted sandwiches failed to make me do, has been miraculously accomplished by ever-increasing petroleum prices.
It is, perhaps, a sad observation on my character that my behaviour can be modified by dire economic need, but my resolutions fall by them wayside when it comes to speeding, crunching humbugs, and the rapid munching of fruit gums, and that my resolve fails even more dolefully when two pairs of soft brown supplicating eyes look into mine so longingly and so deeply as to touch my soul and melt my determination. And no economic consideration will ever prevent my exercising that virtuous vice.
Copyright © 2008 – Ronnie Bray
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Ronnie's Stories:
http://www.2theheart.com/author_ronnie_bray
http://www.meridianmagazine.com/voices/011024summer.html
http://bonzer.virage.net/?s=bray
