CURBSIDE ETIQUETTE

Through the Eyes of a Delivery Goddess



Below you will find links to dates when new entries are added. The stories will not necessarily be in chronological order, but rather as I remember them. I am dating them so that you can skip to new ones you haven't read since the last time you visited, and so that you are more easily able to find something you found humorous to share with others.
Free Concert


We've all done it. If you say that you've never done it - I'd say you're either lying or having a memory lapse.

It's a warm summer day. All four lanes of traffic are stopped at a traffic light - or edging inch by inch during rush hour. Your brain is reiterating the events of the day or making a virtual "to-do" list to accomplish after arriving home; the background noise of rush hour traffic around you is blocked out by your intense thought. Gradually, the intense thought dissipates and music blaring from your radio fades in taking its place. It's a good song... one of your favorites. Still lost in your own world JUST enough that you're basically unaware of the world around you, you chime in with the radio using every ounce of air in your lungs. From your perferal vision area you notice heads snapping to face your direction. Your surroundings suddenly become painfully primary. Ever been there? Perhaps you've laughed at the DJ in one of your loudest laughs, and it catches the attention of surrounding motorists. You can't hide; we've all done it.

After watching a commercial on TV this evening (it's not a commercial that works, since I don't remember the product or service being advertised), I was reminded of one of my more embarassing "Free Concert" moments. I don't embarass easily, but this time came pretty close to "level blush". As I mentioned above, it was a warm summer day - before air conditioning was a necessity for outside temparatures above 60 degrees. I was sitting in four lanes of traffic waiting for the light to turn green. I have no idea what my intense thoughts were about, but over the course of just a few seconds, I became aware of the song on the radio, but not of my surroundings. In the mid-nineteen eighties, there was a song by the group Queen called "I Want Your Body." Of course, that was exactly the line I sang when I noticed the woman in the car to my left snap her head around to stare at me. Through my open window I yelled with an appologetic undertone to my voice, "At least the concert's free..." She quickly looked away - I don't know if she was embarassed when my eyes met hers, or if she turned away to laugh at me "behind my back". My dad always told me that if I laughed at myself first, nobody else could laugh AT me, they'd be laughing WITH me. It's been pretty good advice by which to live.

Have you ever noticed someone a few cars over singing to their radio? You can't help yourself, you MUST scan through your radio channels trying to find the song they're singing. It's a law. We've all done it.

My second best "Free Concert" moment came when I had someone in my car with me and decided to be a clown to get a laugh. Someone in the next car had their passenger window partially rolled down and we could hear the song playing on his radio, although, it wasn't so loud that he couldn't hear me. I nudged my passenger and cocked my head conveying a silent "watch this", and started to sing with the radio in the car next to us. The driver never moved a muscle, but the window slowly rolled up, blocking out my free concert. WELL!!! How rude!