A few months ago, I got my very first car. It was the cutest little Jeep Wrangler you’ve ever seen, gold with a tan soft top and it was all mine.
Of course, when we first bought it, seeing that it was older than I, we had to do a little work. Since then, I’ve replaced the dry rotted tires, a few cylinders in the engine, ripped out the carpet and painted the floorboards with truck bed paint, replaced the speakers and the radio and I’m still going. It seems the only thing I haven’t replaced yet is the horn.
If you can imagine a cross between a distant train whistle and an old man coughing for his prostate exam, you can imagine what my car horn sounds like. It is the weakest, oldest, most useless car horn in the history of car horns. My baby cousin’s Little Tikes peddle car has a stronger sounding horn.
Why have I waited so long to replace it? Two reasons: money don’t grow on trees and I kind of like the way it has calmed me down.
Before I had gotten my own car, I used to drive my parents’ cars. They are much newer cars so you can assume they had well working horns and you can also assume I used those horns a lot.
I guess you could blame it on teenage girl tendencies, but I always seemed to be running late. Don’t get me wrong, I am a perfectly safe driver, with the exception of the occasional minor traffic violation, but I hate being late and when I am in a hurry, I don’t have time for meandering Orlando tourists.
I would honk my horn when it came to all the regular reasons why any normal person would honk their horn, like when someone cut me off or was about to hit me. But, I would also honk my horn for frivolous reasons that just made me seem like an aggressive person.
A few things changed for me once I was finally driving my own car.
Since the car was an old manual, I couldn’t go over 65 miles per hour, and trying to accelerate was like trying to get my sister out of bed before 10 in the morning. I was averaging zero to 60 in fifteen minutes. It was rough, especially for someone who got a deranged kick out of rushing everywhere she went.
As I got the hang of the whole stick shift thing and was averaging a higher acceleration rate, I still was unable to express my anger with my fellow drivers because my horn was inaudible to any other car on the road. It was ridiculously frustrating and I vowed to get the horn fixed immediately, but the more I drove my car, the lower on my priorities list replacing the horn became.
I noticed that my character had been slightly effected by the character of the car.
Because I couldn’t go very fast anymore, I found myself slowing down, planning ahead and allowing myself enough time to get places without having to hurry to get where I needed to be. Also, because I could no longer voice my displeasure, I was forced to bite my tongue and let it go.
Since I’ve started driving my old little grandpa of a car, I’ve become a calmer, more rational person. Some could say that it is just due to the natural maturing in my early 20s, but I’ve learned a decently good lesson from this.
Although the stigma in this day and age is to speak out and voice your opinions, sometimes biting your tongue can work out for the better. The overall takeaway is that road rage requires so much negative energy which you don’t need bogging you down in life. I didn’t have this realization until just recently and I was able to change my habits so you can, too. Old cars for the win!