Sunday, September 26, 2010

Beautiful Blogger Award and Not-So-Beautiful Road Rage

I'll start with the good stuff. Tasia from the gorgeous blog Sewaholic has very generously awarded me with the Beautiful Blogger Award! Thank you Tasia.

I have to list 10 things you may not know about me -- I've done this before in another award I was lucky to get, so I'm not sure I have 10 things! But here are a random few:

1.  My first job was as a skating rink party hostess. I was paid $4.54/hr and had to either do the chicken dance or the Macarena with the party, depending on the age group of the birthday person. Can you believe that (a) I actually did those dances in front of the whole skating rink and (b) I was paid that little an hour? Crazy.

2.  I am working in my third job this year. After finishing my PhD I found it a little difficult to figure out what I really wanted to do. Now I'm back in research at a uni and totally love it.

3.  I haven't really bonded with Melbourne as yet. I think I am really a hot weather, outdoor living girl, and that is not really Melbourne's style. I've been here just over a year, so it may happen yet. It's definitely in the cards for us to move back to the sunshine state though (though not for a couple of years!).

Now I've got to nominate five more bloggers to play along. Here goes:

Jessica from Green Apples
The lovely lady from the Long and Winding Bobbin
Alana from Lazy Stitching
Corinne from Cherri-Berri
Lore from Sew Red Hot

Only answer if you have time - and sorry if you've already received this before!

Now onto the bad stuff. Yesterday it was a very lovely day in Melbourne. Hot, clear, dry. Lovely. Michael and I took Bessie for a walk in the Dandenongs. It was just gorgeous. I didn't have to wear a fleece, I actually got a little sun. Perfect.

We were driving back and stopped for a sandwich. It was difficult to obtain said sandwich on account of most of the places in the town we stopped at not making sandwiches on a sunday (!!). But we got one.

We jumped back in the car and had been driving for about 10 minutes when someone rear-ended us at a red light. That is not so great, but it wasn't too bad. Until the idiot reversed back up and rammed his car into us a second time. His reason? We were slowing down too much leading up to the red light. Now, Michael was driving, and I wouldn't describe him as a particularly granny-like overly cautious driver, so this was a bit of surprise to me.

What was even more of a surprise was when the idiot driver drove off. Queue in 5.5 hours of statement-taking by police, a trip to the hospital to get checked over and our day completely ruined. The good news is neither of us is hurt (neither is Bessie), the car is kind of okay, and the police are going to charge him with multiple offences.

Has anyone else encountered such random and deliberate road rage before? I am truly stunned that this guy thought he could get away with it by driving off.

7 comments:

  1. Congratulation on your award! The road rage thing is really scary and I'm glad you were all okay! I've never had it happen in Melbourne, but had a bad experience during a visit back to Los Angeles a few years ago. A woman in a gi-normous SUV wouldn't reverse a few metres to let me pass on a tiny street and I had no where to go unless I reversed about 1/2km down a windy street. She got out and started screaming and swearing at me at my window (granted, I gave back a fair share) and then went back to her car and put her hand down on the horn until someone from a shop moved came out to get her to stop (she still wouldn't reverse about 5m but she stopped blaring her horn and screaming). They moved a delivery van and forklift so I could reverse into their driveway and let her pass. PSYCHO woman! I still get jumpy when someone honks needlessly! I hope the police get the person who hit you.

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  2. Oh my! What an idiot that guy was. Glad you're all ok and hopefully the guy will think twice about doing that kind of thing again.
    Some guy in a van almost mowed me and my girls down this morning at a pedestrian crossing because he was in such a hurry to get to wherever he was going. All for an extra 30 seconds, loser.

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  3. Hi Rachel,
    Thanks for the nomination - it means so much getting awarded by someone I consider so talented and cool. I just did a post on the award on Friday and I'm afraid I'm just not interesting enough to come up with another 10 either but not because it's not appreciated - it is!
    Hope the road rage hasn't shaken you too badly. I have terrible luck with traffic lights - when I once stopped on an amber and I was rear ended and another time I thought I'd scrape through I was pulled over and given a ticket so it seems damned if you do, damned if you don't ;-)
    Take care,
    ~ Alana

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  4. Goodness! I can't believe how often people experience this kind of stupid behaviour.

    Nikki - I can't believe that moron didn't stop when he saw the kids especially. What an idiot.

    Mel - people really are stupid. And pig-headed. And just plain crazy.

    Alana - I'm such an idiot. I can't believe I missed your post. I read your blog thoroughly -- but I'm still glad I nominated you - your blog is one of my favourites.

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  5. Oh so sorry to hear that! what a big day ruiner! There are way too many impatient and irrational drivers out there, I'm not sure that they recognize how dangerous cars really are. I was hit in my car one night by a speeding car and they did not stop to see if I was okay or anything, just turned around and sped off... my car was in a sorry state and not driveable! nor did my insurance cover it.... NOT HAPPY JAN!!!
    But anyways... these crazy drivers are not worth this long winded comment...
    Melbourne... The bad weather is made up by the zillion zany bars and restaurants... but then again... the weather, is pretty terrible here sometimes!

    Anywho this is getting way off track...
    Thank you so much for the nomination *blush*, my first :-)
    I'll post about it in the next couple of days.

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  6. Heavens - that sucks! Bloody crazy drivers.

    Glad to hear that the three of you are ok.

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  7. Oh wow, that's awful! (The road rage incident not the random facts..) People are crazy out there! I see some bizarre things on the road all the time - I learned to drive in Richmond which is actually known for having terrible drivers! You see a lot of left turns from the right hand lane, driving over medians, and plowing straight through red lights. I'm glad you're ok!!
    Your first job sounds terrible! The chicken dance AND the macarena, oh no! $4.54 per hour is pretty low for that kind of embarassment :)
    Thanks for sharing!

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