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Even best friends sometimes find it difficult to understand each other – especially if one of them is a driver and the other is a pedestrian. All the time it turns out that they see the world from a different angle.
“I’m five minutes away from you” – these words have a completely different meaning for a person behind the wheel and a person on foot. Why didn’t I think of this in time?! – I think, stepping over the layers of asphalt removed by road workers, and trying to find my girlfriend in an unfamiliar area, who is five minutes away from me. I look around for the “high house” that is listed as an omen. Tired, out of breath and covered with road dust, I finally get to her: she sits in the car, her hands beautifully placed on the steering wheel, and patiently waits for me. I fall into the next chair, reveling in the air-conditioned coolness of the cabin, we move off, and in five minutes we find ourselves exactly where I started half an hour ago. Where our meeting was supposed to take place. Here I can’t stand it and still I ask an unnecessary question: why couldn’t we meet here right away? “I saw you and turned around for joy,” she replies, not at all embarrassed. “But you can’t turn around there, you had to drive a block.” Indeed, everything is logical.
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- Why do we drive like this?
Humble yourself, I tell myself, the pedestrian is doomed: he will be the one who will look for his driver friend. This seems strange only at first glance. It’s pointless to ask why a man on wheels doesn’t just drive through this block that has divided us. After all, everything is obvious: there is no turn, there is nowhere to park, and it is unthinkable to leave the car and walk on foot – who leaves the car unattended? How about a tow truck? And nothing threatens me. I can go where I want, no one will take my legs and take them to the impound. I would be happy, but for some reason, instead of feeling superior, I feel sadness and irritation.
Another wonderful thing is the navigator. The driver is not responsible for anything. “The navigator told me that I would be there in 15 minutes.” The navigator is to blame for the fact that the road turned out to be three times longer. The business of the waiting pedestrian is to take care of himself, to quickly understand what his interlocutor behind the wheel does not guess: the navigator is not a higher power, he is not omniscient. So, maybe it’s better to take a cozy place in the nearest cafe, and not stomp on the street in the appointed place, taking on faith the promises of a mechanical voice. Of course, there is a chance that as soon as they bring us a foamy cappuccino, we will hear a friend call: “Where are you? Hurry up, parking is prohibited here!” But the freedom of choice is ours: if you want, frantically pay for unfinished coffee, or if you want, just stand by the roadside as a meerkat, peer into the stream of cars.
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- I don’t want to learn to drive
Separately about traffic jams. “I’m stuck in traffic” is a magic phrase that justifies any delay for any time. Traffic jams are a ferocious and unpredictable element, and it is in human power to oppose it only with unbending will and perseverance. This commands respect. The one who overcomes the traffic jam is the winner, and is not subject to trial. And the pedestrian is able to calculate his step forward – 5 km / h, it is written in the school textbook of mathematics. So all his delays are pure sloppiness and spinelessness.
I used to be innocently happy when my next acquaintance, friend or friend of both sexes got behind the wheel: a new skill, new opportunities. Now I’m thinking more and more. We have to find ourselves in different worlds and speak different languages. I will be near the Ulitsa 1905 Goda metro station, and when he/she says: “I am on Zvenigorodsky”, I will not understand that it is five minutes away from me. But not to interrupt the acquaintance because of driving? There is, of course, a way out – and many advise me to do this – to drive myself. But I live near the metro and appreciate its reliability and predictability … that is, in the city I don’t need a car at all, just like a headache with rising gas prices, unforeseen repairs, fines and other things like that. And out of the city my friends-motorists carry me. They patiently wait for me to drag my belongings to a place almost near my house where it is more convenient for them to stay, and then we ride together, and I am blissful and passenger while they control the situation and are responsible for our common safety. And I serenely admire the fields and forests, which would hardly please me if I looked at them through the train window … I will definitely remind myself of all this the next time I walk along the broken-down streets to get to the car that is five minutes … drive.