Windows down

3 reasons I NEVER rode with the windows down in the car:

1. 16 1/2 years old. I'm sitting at a red light, windows down...singing (Yes...loud country). A old biker with a very long white beard pulls up, unbeknownst, next to me. He apparently enjoys the country music also. He sticks his head into my window to tell me about it. All I see is, all of the sudden, an old creepy biker with his head (and beard) in my car saying in his gruff biker voice: "Hey, babydoll!". I scream and roll up my window...almost trapping his beard in the window, and proceed to stare straight ahead for another awkward 2 min while I wait to the light to change.

2. 18 years old. I'm singing (yes, again) and a bug flies in my mouth! Not just near my mouth or slightly in where I can spit it out easily...NO. IN my mouth. As in I almost choke on it and then have to pull this huge wasp looking thing out of the back of my throat with my fingers!! ewwww

3. 18 1/2 years old. The last straw. Driving through a construction zone...windows down...not singing this time. I stop to let a concrete flattener thing pass by...and...a bird flies into my car!!! YES! a bird! IN my car!! What are the chances?! It flapped around in my dashboard/windshield area for a bit. My first and only reaction was to scream and throw my hands into the air...yeah, I actually threw my hands up by my ears. It left pretty quickly, but from then on, I swore...those windows were staying up!


1 reason why I CAN'T WAIT to ride with the windows down:

1. There is no AC in cars in Africa. Like ever really. It is blazing hot and you get into a stuffy, often dirty taxi cab and you have one question in your mind..."do the windows go down?" And the most wonderful feeling in the world is when (whether you crank it, it falls, it never went up in the first place cuz it's stuck, or you use a wrench on a bolt to crank it down) the window offers a refreshing and glorious breeze to blow through your hair, across your face, and throughout the car. Putting the windows down here, I can almost smell Africa...wind, fish, the ocean, bakeries...I can feel Africa...I can feel the refreshing breeze coming across that same ocean and into my car.

And so I risk the birds, bees, and bikers, just for a little taste, a little reminder, of the country, I love :-)