Drive, He Said. - By Vera Mont
"Nice body," he said, looking me up and down, like a piece of merchandise. "Curves in all the right places, sexy rear bumper. She'll do."
He scribbled his famous name on the contract, swiped his black platinum Euro card and climbed into the passenger seat. "Okay," he said, "you drive."
Dutifully, I asked, "Where to, Sir Hames?"
He didn't bother to reply, just punched an address into the GPS.
I had to remind him, "Please fasten your seatbelt."
"Why, you gonna crash?"
I refused to start the engine until he snapped the buckle shut. That didn't stop him talking. He made observations about every female pedestrian. His opinion was low and expressed in the crudest possible terms.
"Go faster," he said.
"I am driving at the speed limit, Sir Hames," I replied.
"Who cares? Go faster!"
Unable to comply, I did what I had longed to do since I met him. I pulled over and stopped, shut down the engine. For five glorious minutes, everyone on the street stopped and stared while he beat his fat fists on my hood, screaming, "Piece of shit! Goddam piece of shit!"
He scribbled his famous name on the contract, swiped his black platinum Euro card and climbed into the passenger seat. "Okay," he said, "you drive."
Dutifully, I asked, "Where to, Sir Hames?"
He didn't bother to reply, just punched an address into the GPS.
I had to remind him, "Please fasten your seatbelt."
"Why, you gonna crash?"
I refused to start the engine until he snapped the buckle shut. That didn't stop him talking. He made observations about every female pedestrian. His opinion was low and expressed in the crudest possible terms.
"Go faster," he said.
"I am driving at the speed limit, Sir Hames," I replied.
"Who cares? Go faster!"
Unable to comply, I did what I had longed to do since I met him. I pulled over and stopped, shut down the engine. For five glorious minutes, everyone on the street stopped and stared while he beat his fat fists on my hood, screaming, "Piece of shit! Goddam piece of shit!"
Comments (21)
I've found this principle works. Even if I open a book in the middle and read a few paragraphs, I can be sold or warned off. We've all slogged through soggy books that were not promising on the first page, and stayed true to their bad beginnings all the way to the end.
A lovely story of sweet revenge by a thinking/talking/driving inanimate on her arrogant, entitled 'master'.
I hope her hood survived to tell another tale...
Brilliant run of contrasting dialogue.
Drive, He Said.
No, She Said.
So funny :cool:
I like it :up:
A nice little gem on the distinction between objectification and subjectification. The machine here is the ethical character. Whilst in reality tools and machines are simply used, and have no opinion or agency regarding what they're used for.
Perhaps a ode to the rise of true artifical intelligence and the conflicts that may pose for people who want to be a bit irrational, a bit impulsive, and expect their posession to obey mindlessly.
He demands she go against her programming - that is the "good and safe behaviour" she operates by.
I like the story. Bravo/brava.
It's a high-end car, designed with all possible protections for the passenger. He probably paid extra for that feature and didn't even notice.
She was compliant, parental and just and he reckless, objectifying, arrogant, and childish.
A more reasonable man would have treated her this way:
In the world of a devotedly feminist woman, all women are saints and all men are chauvinistic pigs. The expected becomes predictable.
:up: :lol:
It's unfortunate that that men predictably think of their modes of transport as female. The machine has no sex, gender or affiliation: that's only in the mind of the owner. And reader.
Men as a group do not do that. Some do, some don't.
NOT ALL MEN are the same. However, it is a socio-psychological fact that a demographic against which bias exists, will be branded to be a homogeneous group by the holder of the bias. This homogenizing comes up event after event after event.
NOT ALL MEN are in the story. Just the one arrogant rich boy who feels entitled to break rules.
What - like feminists? They're not in the story, either.
Here you did not say NOT ALL MEN. But I take your adjustment in the wording.
I didn't say all men or some men or any men; I said it was predictable that men, collectively though not universally, do this. Some women also do it, but that's less predictable. Referring to vehicles as female, even to the point of giving them girls' names, is a common enough practice not to be remarked by most people, including many, though not all men.
:blush: :up:
(you see kids... a long time ago public phones had these small booths around them. YouÂ’d pay to use them, and couldnÂ’t even watch movies on them. Crazy!)
It'd've been more interesting if the car showed an attraction to him, yet he had another car that he liked, and there was a car-car-person love triangle that ended in a suicide/homicide when the car drove off a cliff, this time without the seat belt warning. That was intentional by the evil car.
Wait, I'm not done.
Then, when the car was at the bottom of hill, burning out of control, a baby car emerges from the trunk because we now learn the car was preggers, so it was a triple death, the final one being a vehicafeticide. But it doesn't die right away, but it suffers for years, depleting the family of all its money, and then when it finally dies alone, no one gives a fuck.
And then the story ends with Santa orally pleasuring Jesus.
That's how I saw it going. But I always think things will be cliche like that.
Midnight mass, I think. And confession.
Merry whatever....
I just learned fjords must be by the sea, but there has to be an inlet with another fjord across from it. There also has to be a Viking ship nearby I think.