Top Gear

A few months ago, I handed the keys of my beloved 1995 Hyundai Excel to the mechanic for a service. In return, when he finished his work, he handed me a bill for 900 hundred dollars. Thats right, nine hundred Australian dollars. My heart sank. This car was worth more as a heap of junk.

So, I approached a second car dealer. He worked next to the Ugly Duckling, such painful memories. He encouraged me to walk around and have a look at the available cars. So, I meandered around and there it was. It shone in the sun. Its sharp angles reflect the light in all directions. Its deep gunmetal grey paint cried out for my attention.

So, after a lot of thinking, and many restless nights, I traded in my faithful excel and bought a 2000 Hyundai Accent. It was love at first sight. Now, the Excel meant nothing to me. The Accent had power in the form of a twin cam engine and style, in the form of a rear spoiler, which merely confirmed my masculinity.

You see, a car is important to me since i drive roughly forty minutes to and from work every day. I drive from east Melbourne to south Melbourne across the Eastlink through busy traffic. Sometimes, I am driven off the road by semitrailers or am overtaken by 4WD's or fuel hungry sedans. Nevertheless, every day is a different and unexpected journey.

Here are some of the stereotype or lables I apply to the different vehicles I encounter.

• Rusted Semi-trailer - The driver is overweight, bearded and has a bottle of beer in his hand and likes to be in control.
• 4WD - The driver is a mother or businesswoman or both. The vehicle is in mint condition and never has been driven properly in rough, 4WD terrain.
• Large, fuel-hungry sedans - The driver is male, business type with a bluetooth headset and is forever driven by the clock and the next deadline. Most probably with a German manufactured engine. Don't mention the war. (Forgive the Fawlty Towers reference)
  
• 2000 Hyundai Accent - The driver is suave, charming, intelligent, confident adn good looking.

A sobering thought struck me as I was driving. As I drive in my bubble I call a vehicle, every other vehicle around me becomes an obstacle to my final destination. The appearance of these obstacles, or vehicles, defines the label or stereotype placed on the driver. But, the realilty is that every vehicle that I encounter on the road is driven by a human being. This is may sound quite simple. But, my point is that as a driver, I treat the vehicle next to me as an obstacle or an inanimate object that I just ignore or treat with contempt. But, every vehicle is being driven by a person with ambitions, dreams, anxieties and pains. I am challenged by the way I drive and how I treat others on the road. It is so easy for us to label a person based on the vehicle they drive and treat them as their stereotype dictates.

A quote says, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"

Then again, I love the label applied to the 2000 Hyundai Accent, quite accurate in my opinion.

I was sick!

Well, as swine flu sweeps across this nation, I bravely am still here writing. This entry is late though; let me explain.

A few weeks ago, I felt very cold with chills and realised I had a fever. So, I did not go to work and stayed home to recover. Instead, my condition worsened and I also had the flu. Every joint in my body groaned. I became delirious and could not think straight. At one point, I thought I saw the Angel of Death coming towards me and realised it was my sister coming to check on my temperature.

So, I visited a doctor and he gave me some medication. But, unfortunately, my weary body had an allergic reaction to the penicillin in the medication (I mean seriously, who uses penicillin these days?). This allergic reaction caused me to break out into hives and had pretty serious asthma. I felt like I had been bitten by a thousand mosquitoes and was coughing up a lung. So, on the saturday night, my family were quite worried and rushed me to hospital. So I waited for an hour and a half in the emergency ward. Once a doctor came to see me, he immediately put me in a hospital bed and placed an IV of fluids and antihistamines in my left arm, an oxygen mask on my face and an injection of more antihistamines in my right bicep. So the next day, I left the hospital with enough medication to last a lifetime. Apparently, the blood tests confirmed I did not have swine flu, even though I felt I had the bubonic plague.

So, a week and a half later, here I am. I can breathe again and am recovering. Life is beautiful