So there I was in peak hour traffic this morning crawling towards the traffic lights on my trusty lil Vespa. On my left a small delivery truck pulls up alongside. Catching my eye, the driver nods his head in a silent G’day, and starts waving a cassette tape at me before disappearing out of sight, presumably to insert said tape into his tape deck. David Bowie begins blaring out of the truck compartment, accompanied a split second later by the driver’s enthusiastic but off-key voice, wailing ‘joohn I’m only dansiiing!’, drowning out the immediate ambiance of idling engines.
After staring at him for a bit, no doubt with a bemused-are you unhinged- look on my face, I thought bugger it, and started singing along at the top of my voice with him. Encouraged, he increased the volume of both the cassette player as well as his own voice and flashed me a cheeky grin.
So there we were; sitting in stagnant traffic, in the beautiful early morning summer sun, total strangers, singing Bowie to each other (ch-ch-changes!), complete with hand gestures as if we didn’t have a care in the world, much to the amusement of fellow commuters. Does a Friday morning get any better than that?!


10 comments
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February 15, 2008 at 10:04 am
Logophile
Singing Bowie in the traffic – I love it!
February 15, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Th
What a great story. You’re right, it doesn’t get better than that!
February 16, 2008 at 3:52 am
Melanie
What a great image of happiness for a dreary winter morning. Thanks for sharing!
February 20, 2008 at 10:49 pm
gentle reader
Lol–I love it! Thanks for sharing
March 11, 2008 at 10:48 am
Logophile
Thought you might like this – in today’s Guardian
http://music.guardian.co.uk/folk/story/0,,2264097,00.html
March 12, 2008 at 2:49 am
antipodeanowl
You Logophile, are a gem! thanks very much for this. Ahhh a Billy fix!
March 28, 2008 at 1:04 am
Stefanie
Excellent story!
June 19, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Inconvenient
Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation
Anyway … nice blog to visit.
cheers, Inconvenient.
June 23, 2008 at 11:49 am
mustie
That’s one of those sorts of things that just never seem to happen, and when they do they seem so detached from reality, and are consequently so difficult to place in your memory, that you quickly forget them.
June 27, 2008 at 2:16 pm
antipodeanowl
Inconvenient, I think the only real point for me is that life provides us with beautiful moments at the most random of times!
mustie, agreed! They are so surreal when they happen and are quickly forgotten, which I why I had to write this one down!!