The consequences of not getting any (running)

The fact that I haven't been training properly the last three months (or at all, as the case has been the last couple of weeks) has not been without consequences. Some of them I expected (the fact that my Grow A Big Fat Arse Project is coming along nicely, for instance – my arse is getting so big, it's growing its own arse), some of them less expected, though by no means surprising (my stamina deteriorating so much I can hardly walk up the stairs without getting out of breath, my messed-up sleeping patterns, strange new aches plaguing my supposedly rested body).

And then there are consequences I wouldn't have anticipated in a million years. Like road rage. Bad drivers have always irritated me, but this afternoon's little incident left me furious.

Picture this: a petrol station, two rows of pumps. Me, parked by the curb on the side, running in to pick up a package, then getting out to find a huge 4x4 parked right between (and slightly in front) of the two pumps. Let me illustrate:

Car number 1 had apparently broken down, right in the middle of the lot. Roadside assistance (number 2) was backing towards it, stopping approximately 5 meters from it, obviously for no good reason other than to bust my non-existent nuts by leaving no space for me to drive out (why yes, the world revolves around me, glad you noticed). The driver then stepped out and disappeared into the petrol station, possibly to find the owner of car number 1, and -failing that- to buy a hot dog. Car number 3 had strategically parked to the right of the road assistance vehicle, so that no one could drive out that way.

I tried to catch the roadside assistance woman's eye when she stepped out of the vehicle to, I don't know, make her notice she was blocking me? Maybe help her understand that if she just moved the vehicle a little further forward (or back! I can compromise) then I could drive out of the petrol station and we could all go on with our day. She avoided looking at me. A few seconds after she was out of sight, another lady gets out of car number 3, where she had been waiting all along, and goes into the petrol station, abandoning her car right in front of mine. Inexplicably oblivious of the fact that she, too, was blocking the exit.

Now, I'm sitting in my car, tired after a long day at work, wanting nothing more than to go home. I can't go back, because it's one-way only. I can't go forward. Despite priding in several years' worth of high school physics, the rational part of my brain momentarily blacks out and I try squeezing between car number 1 and vehicle number 2. I realise quickly that, not only is such a manoeuvre physically impossible, what with the space between the two vehicles being smaller than that occupied by my car, but also that there are people outside the petrol station witnessing the whole embarrassing scene, i.e. me trying to fit an elephant into a thimble. I back quickly, narrowly missing the pumps, swerve around them and try driving on the left side of the roadside assistance vehicle.

The yellow-reflex clown has left the bloody door open. Because of course she bloody has.

She's now back, getting ready at glacial speed to load the broken-down car onto the bed of the vehicle. Now! I think. Now she'll finally notice me! And close the bloody door so I can squeeze past that frighteningly narrow space between the car wash and the roadside assistance vehicle!

She completely ignores me. And my blood pressure is reaching new heights. What would a rational human being do under the circumstances? Ding dong, ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner! You get out of the car and give her a piece of your mind of course! Come on up and claim your prize!

Instead, I scream profanities in my head at the same time as I silently pray that I won't get any scratches on the car, and drive out like a snail, missing the door by 1 mm. A snail that turns into a furious demon once I leave the petrol station. I was doing at least 30 km/h.

See kids? See what kind of monster I turn into when I don't get my running fix?