"On the day of my grandfather's funeral..."

On the day of my grandfather's funeral, my brother and I got in a street race... kind of.

We called him Bobby -- my granddad on my mother's side. He was a great man. He died when he was 82, and I was 15. That means my brother was 17. I remember it clearly for many reasons, including the event below, and also because it was my first (and so far, only) close family death. I have been lucky in that respect of my life.

As a warning, this story is not as humorous as my others, as you might already see, but don't worry, I'm not recounting all the somber details.

Bobby was cremated. In actuality, the funeral had already happened and it was a powerfully sad gathering. Following it, I believe on a different day altogether, Bobby's ashes were stored in a columbarium. My brother Lucas, myself, my aunts and uncles were all present for the less formal, shorter proceeding in the cemetery. My brother drove the two of us separately, so when the actual storing of the ashes was done, we could depart early from the lingering in the courtyard. 

A couple blocks from the cemetery, at a major intersection red light, Lucas and I pulled up beside a worn Volkswagen Golf in my brother's even more worn Subaru Outback hatchback. Lucas and I were wearing suits and ties, and we were talking about Bobby. I believe it was a Sunday morning because traffic was light, but still the red light lasted long enough for tensions to rise. As I looked to my left, past my brother in the driver seat, I could see a couple of youths, perhaps a boy and his girlfriend in the front seats of the Golf. They had a younger sibling in the back seat too. They were visibly amused by us. Presumably our clothes, or our car, or the combination. I told Lucas, and he looked over to them. They made some immature gestures -- the younger sibling in the rear window was equally delinquent, making a face. My brother and I mutually decided they were shit heads, and it was known by all parties we would race off the line.

Green light.

Now, as old as my brother's Subaru may have been, it was a standard transmission while the Golf was not. Also, our fucking grandpa just died, so this was for Bobby. We raced aggressively beside the Golf through the intersection and down the hill on the other side. We were neck and neck until my brother seemingly quit the child's play and we dropped those shits. We pulled in front of them and continued to floor it. I looked back while my brother triumphantly raised a finger in farewell. Fuck 'em.

I miss you Bobby.

You're welcome,

B.F. Greenough, aka,
Chief Hanky, The Mourning Master

Intimidation, Sec. 423 (1)(e)

I have heard some of the dumbest things of my life come from mouths of my friend group, myself included. We seem to be a free gumball-machine of idiotic ideas, that breaks open once there is more than two of us together. The proposition and resultant events told below are no exceptions to this trend. The neat thing about dumb ideas though, is that they have a really great return rate for fantastic stories.  When faced with a moronic opportunity, it's dangerous how much the potential for a great story can tip the scales.  That's why when James suggested one night that we follow other cars on the road for as long as we could, it was hard to see anything but laughs as a payoff.

Have you ever been driving in front of another car and just as you are about to take a turn, the car behind you turns his signal on too? And then he's with you for another turn? And another? You think, "is this guy following me?", and just as it's about to get suspicious, he pulls into a driveway and it's over. Or what about the other way around? You are behind a car and happen to be going where they happen to be going, it seems, at least for a few turns. Then the invasive thought comes: "what would happen if I followed this car all the way to their destination?" This line of thinking seemed to be the origin for James's proposed entertainment one evening. The four of us who heard the idea took little convincing to give it a shot.

Five of us loaded into James's minivan at around 8:30pm on a week night. We left from another friend's house and got onto a main road to find our first "leader". An innocent black sedan. We followed him for six or seven turns until we ended up at his house, where he simply got out of his car and went inside. We realized we weren't noticed. The third attempt would rectify this, because as for our second attempt, all we did was repeatedly turn our blinker on falsely before continuing to follow the driver. We were successful on our sequential attempts because we honked at the victims early in the tailing. I want to remind you, this was incredibly stupid.

There were three successful tailings. The first was the least climatic as once we realized the leader knew we were following him, he performed some quick turns in an unfamiliar neighbourhood and lost us -- good on him. The second and third were stressful events. In the second, the driver sped up to 80km/hr on a city street attempting to evade us. We matched his speed and actually ended up in the next township. He turned onto a side road and performed a U-turn, doubling back on us. As you might imagine, there was much debate happening in the van at this moment. What do we do? James's heart was pumping. "Just wait." His window was down as he yelled at us, but we left ours up. Silence in our car. He stopped to see if we would leave. "Shit, man." We followed him as he got back on the main road, before deciding to let him go. Phew.

Now the third -- incredible. After less than a minute of recognizing the tail, the driver came to a dead stop on a major street -- so we did too. "Whoa." He reversed quickly. "Reverse! Go go go!" We matched him. The road was quiet at this time of night. He came to a stop once more, and exited the vehicle. "Jesus!" someone said in the car. He was screaming at us. There was nervous laughter from all of us. We did nothing. He sped off and we followed once more. He entered a plaza parking lot and actually got behind us. This was very smart, as we were already tense, and now we were actually being followed. So we fled. "Fuck this." He left us be after only a couple turns, and that was the night. "Yeah, we're not doing that again." Good idea. It was ridiculous. A creative way to entertain ourselves, but in all the wrong ways.

I have since learned that what we did that night is called Intimidation, and it is illegal -- to no one's surprise.

You're welcome (and sorry),

B.F. Greenough, aka,
Chief Hanky,  The Dumb Driver