Since awakening before sunshine slid across a kind breakfast table, my day is full of sticky noises. Trumpeting television commentaries, conversational corneting groups, strings of screeching birds, and unidentifyable thumping sounds from afar are sounds that have remained orchestrally mixed on my inner sound stage. One after another, these are being added to create a symphonic score as of yet complete.
… Aaand, not done because I have yet to add one final instrument staff: traffic noise. All day, everywhere, car clamor has been present in all its forms. To finish off my overuse of alliteration, hubcap hubbub can’t be bumped to the burm of any road on which I find myself today. While on pedestrian footpaths or drive-on pavements, trucks and autos are exhausting so much racket, my composition is deteriorating at the moment.
There are a lot of vehicles on the roads. Big and small. Wide and narrow. Pick any fun “Sesame Street” song with happy adjectives, and I bet any combination of two would describe a desputt-puffer I am seeing today. For some reason, most have either some loud, objectionable horn that must be heard .003 seconds after the turning of a green light, or muffler disguised as ten invisible tubas. The noises are, well, disruptive and irritating.
I hear creaky car doors opening, blaring radio music from unstationary cars whizzing by, and stationary – but active – jack hammers beside dump trucks moving earth around small orange cones. There are yell-able drivers two feet away from, apparently, non-interested passengers, revving engines from bouncy cars, tires grovelling humbly over small shale in parking lots, and “spatch” curb sounds from a red Ford truck tire too close when parallel parking.
Yep, traffic noise. A non-harmonious grouping of sounds in my brain gathered not all at once, but over a few short hours. Minutes, on the positive side, I should appreciate.
People are out doing “them”. Their “thing”, whatever that is for today. Heck, I am. How boring it would be as the lone driver on an abandoned highway? The people and places I see are interesting and engaging. My hope would be they find conversation with me equally enjoyable and productive.
The go-about humans driving around are headed somewhere, coming from a place, too. Presumably, the vehicle they are in is a safe zone for thoughts and feelings, regardless of what’s going on around them. Vehicles are, in a lot of ways, second homes. Mine is. I have food, music, pen and paper, boxes, money, some clothes🙄, extra medicine for emergencies, bottled water, and blankets.
Oh, and a busted up lower front bumper that, er, makes one hell of a racket when making a hard right turn.
So, I guess there’s no immunity for me when traffic noise is discussed. Today, all the loco-commotion bothers me, however. Around every turn: traffic noise in some form. Ugh.
Did you ever have a day like this when some specific irk got to you? Fortunately, I found a quiet corner in which to sit and tap in my thoughts.
Oh, wait.
Of course, I’ll just finish this up now. My luck was short lived. Time to add another instrumental line to an ever increasing orchestral load. A tumbler just blumbled up the street! I may not be able to conduct myself properly if this continues.
Let’s assume he’s headed somewhere to rehearse his part. Yeah, that’s it.
DougHugs 