This post was my single most popular humour column/stand-up routine (with appropriate gestures) back in the days when I wrote under Funny Girl.
(With apologies to gorillas.)
Who needs a telephone booth? My guy can step into any car and become: ROAD WARRIOR!
There must be a primitive instinct that overcomes a male each time he gets behind the wheel of a car, and which also makes him forget that he actually got beyond the evolutionary stage of the giant African gorilla.
Because every day, millions of men the world over climb into their twenty-first century chariots of steel to hear a voice from the heavens proclaim, “Gentlemen, start your engines!” At which point all lads who possess a scrap of testosterone drop into first, stomp on the gas and lay a trail of smoking rubber in an attempt to beat the other blokes away from the lights.
Because every day, millions of men the world over climb into their twenty-first century chariots of steel to hear a voice from the heavens proclaim, “Gentlemen, start your engines!” At which point all lads who possess a scrap of testosterone drop into first, stomp on the gas and lay a trail of smoking rubber in an attempt to beat the other blokes away from the lights.
I can remember traveling in my guy’s car down Gerrard street one day, when a red Camaro, which was traveling about two miles an hour faster than we were, pulled up beside us and tried to pass. Whereupon, the man I promised to love and honour until death do us part – or at least until the next tax year – stepped on the gas and roared up the street doing a wheelie, in case, of course, the Camaro might just DARE to cut in front.
The driver of the red Camaro, not wishing to appear shortchanged on his giant gorilla genes, immediately dashed up alongside, and proceeded to make extremely rude hand gestures while shifting gears and controlling a skid, all at the same time.
The two cars jerked their way down Gerrard, both drivers screaming at each other through closed windows, until my own true love slammed on the brakes, effectively blocking two lanes of traffic and the entire Jarvis Street intersection. He then got out of the car.
Now the occupants of the Camaro were the sort of people one would expect to see driving a red Camaro down Gerrard: guys with names like Carlos and Guido, whose idea of a fun Saturday night is counting the notches on their machine guns. And if I hadn’t started screaming and fainting in the manner of Fay Wray with King Kong (another gorilla) we would probably all still be there; my guy standing out in the middle of the intersection flailing his arms, ready to “teach them a lesson.”
What was he going to do? Kick their tires?
Of course, we females don’t participate in ridiculous behavior like this. We’re far too busy shopping for things we don’t need.
