10 SLIGHTLY IRRESPONSIBLE GAMES TO OCCUPY YOUR FRIED HIGHWAY BRAIN
From the bleak blacktop bitumen of Blacktown to the glorious red sands of the Simpson Desert, this is a somewhat irresponsible list of entertainment for your rig. Because if you don’t go a little bit mad you might go a lot bit mad.
It’s time to step back and look at our vehicles from another perspective. They are our windscreens to the world and should be treated as such. {All pics, Carlisle Rogers}
1. THE SOUNDTRACK
The windscreen becomes a mobile movie monitor as life’s documentary unfolds before you. Pedestrians are the stars and, with your windows up, you are in your own cinematic bubble, where you call the shots.
A little knowledge of Itunes can soon have a music player stocked with toe-tapping anthems like Christopher Cross’s ‘Ride Like The Wind’, anything by Richard Marx or Debbie Gibson, Angry Anderson’s ‘Suddenly’, you name it. Oft times the beat of the song will go perfectly to the walking movements of the footpath-bound stars as you become a mobile Spike Jonez/Hype Williams-style film clip director.
I live around the corner from a retirement village and when I buckle-up each Saturday morning to get out of town it is also the time about 30 elderly folk embark on their morning power walks. This is where the Munsters’ theme, or NWA’s ‘100 Miles and Runnin’ come into their own. In the eerie dawn mist of winter I sometimes flick the high-beams on them for extra mood lighting and take in the show.
2. THE ANGRY REFEREE
Stuck in the city on a Friday afternoon and beating a hasty path through traffic to get to your favourite getaway? Someone driving too close? Don’t like the look of them? Then send ’em off!
When you can see them flick their indicators toward an off-ramp, engage their attention, put an imaginary referee’s whistle to your mouth, blow a tweeting noise, and point to the exit with a hit-the-showers look on your face. Don’t take your eyes off the road ahead, but depending on the severity, use elaborate hand signals that may require you to steer with your pelvis.
3. BUCKET SEAT PICNIC
You’ve got a long weekend haul ahead of you, a marathon drive to Forster or Carnarvon, if you don’t want to stop at every petrol station on the way then you are going to need to be prepared. Set up your boombox, ashtray, water bottle, thermos, cutlery, dip, cheese wheel, roast chicken, and condiments across the passenger seat and graze throughout your journey. If you have a missus don’t feel like you’re being inconsiderate in asking them to sit in the back. Girlfriends love picnics more than anyone and, thus, will understand. If they are the irrational type and they start protesting, simply toss them a Jatz every now and again, like a seal trainer would a pilchard, and they’ll gobble it up and soon forget what they were ever angry about.
4. NAME YOUR WAGONS
But not “The Beast”, “The Black Pearl”, “Tweety Bird” or anything so limp. Give them a good solid name like John, George or Edgar. They must also have a surname – they’re cars, not pop stars. (Note, there is strict sex segregation in the rig naming racket. A man may not under any circumstance name his car with a girl’s name, and vice versa.)
My own vehicle, for instance, is called Winston Carlton-Smythe. Quite often, I picture my two-tone Holden Jackaroo driving through a garden party in 18th Century Surrey, eating canapes, telling ribald jokes and toasting his drinks. Cuz that’s just the kind of rogueish cad he is, though I must say he’s a little more stuck up than my old car (RIP Wayne Brown).
If your car’s from Vietnam, then you must name him in his mother tongue, something you’ll remember like Tran Ngyun or Le Thanh Tong. Don’t anglicise the pronunciation either – on all occasions the name must be spoken in the native brogue.
5. USE YOUR HORN
Liberally. Your car doesn’t have a mouth but don’t let that stop you from communicating with the world. Packs of cyclists need constant encouragement and pedestrians you’ve never met before really do need to know they’re dressed inappropriately. Horns are also likely to run into trouble around saltwater, be sure to check them every four minutes on the beach. This will also make you feel like a big man.
6. THE RADIO ENGINE
Every car radio has one. A magic frequency, usually on the AM band, that picks up the sound of the engine and the revs of the accelerator pedal. With the bass and volume turned up, this produces an amplified ‘blubbity-blub-blub’ sound like an underwater bubble car, and, translation, that’s pretty cool. If you’ve got decent speakers it’ll be far louder than the engine could ever hope to be on its best day.
Wind the windows down and astonish clean-living country folk, with a gurgling sound like you’ve just driven straight out of the nearest billabong.
7. HIDE & SEEK
We’ve all been there. Surly teenagers complaining that the air conditioning is drying the PH levels on their acne riddled skin, that the movie screens on the back of mum and dad’s seats are too glarey, that they want a pony with ribbons in its hair, or that that you haven’t bought them any food for four days now. Well, boo hoo, you might rightly say to them. But these teens are a godless bunch, and this is unlikely to pacify them, in fact they will drive you to the very brink of insanity, and when they do, this is the ideal game to play. All kid’s love playing hide-and-seek, simply pull over and say ‘Look, there’s an iphone charger/McDonalds/ Justin Beiber’s monkey/ etc!” This will send them on a wild stampede, use the dustbowl they’ve created to make a snappy getaway. Then, over the din of screeching tyres, scream out: “Now, count to eleventy million and come looking for your mother and I.”
8. SEE HOW MUCH FUEL THE TANK CAN HOLD
Sometimes you need to know what the minimum amount of fuel you can get away with is. And there’s only one way to find out. When you do run out of gas on the side of the road somewhere on the Nullarbor, call your friends and impress them, they’ll be so astounded by your mileage they’ll think nothing of leaving their dinner engagement to come and pick you up.
9. CREATE A DUMP
This isn’t so much the fun bit as what you might find in there while waiting for your mates on the side of the road somewhere on the Nullarbor.
This is your chance to do some real exploration, forget about traipsing around Kakadu or the Kimberley, the back seat is where the real heart of discovery lies. In the space of five minutes you might find your mate ‘Spacka’’s VHS video returns, old undies (yours?), a drowned centipede in a KFC gravy container, an eviction notice, a scorpion, bait from your last fishing trip in ’09, etc.
10. CRACK THE “Da Numberplate Code”
Handy for those tense bumper-to-bumper Sunday nights when you’re trying to get back to town, for what reason you’re still not sure. Note the number plate in front, particularly the first three letters and use the acronym to describe the driver who’s going 20km/h under the limit. For example “WBP-745” might become “Wart Faced Pelican”. Other recent favourites include “Steve’s Colon Polyps”, “Nice One Garry” and “You’ve Got Gingavitis”. For reasons still unclear, number plates including the letter F are the most prized.
They say a fast game’s a good game, and with this in mind, this must be the world’s greatest. This becomes so tedious you will likely lose interest after two number plates. Game finished, you can move on with your life, a better person for the experience.
