Melissa's Place

Black Matrix

C-dawg drives a Black Matrix. It's a very new model. I'd recognize it anywhere.

In fact I did. Recognize it that is. At the stop lights of Southdown and Truscott. In the left-turning lane. Directly in front of me. At 7:45 a.m. on a Friday.

What are the odds? How many black matrices (?) can there be out there? Waiting to turn down the road where our school is located? We were waiting in the left-turning lane for a long time. Long enough for me to contemplate the shape of the driver's head and shoulders. Long enough for me to stare at the beautifully manicured eyebrows and the hair line. Long enough for me to squint into the side mirror even, in hopes of a different vantage point. Long enough for me to wonder whether C-dawg has an air freshener dangling from the rear-view mirror and whether she's raised the middle back seat head rest.

C-dawg has a dog. Of course she has an air freshener.

I honk a friendly honk, just a half second before the light turns. Timed almost too perfectly, the startled looking eyes think I'm impatient (or have ESP). There's no friendly wave or even recognition. She just thinks I'm some jerk who's honked at her. This bothers me. She's probably swearing at me right now. Or she's really panicked that she's done something terribly erroneous.

I have to right this wrong.
We're turning the corner. I honk again. Louder this time. She'll HAVE to look behind now. At least before I veer off into the Tim Hortons parking lot.
And then there's a glance in her rear-view. But no wave!
Oh hell. Now she'll be good and angry.

Oh well. I'm off the road now and into the coffee shop.
A few minutes later, I pull into the school's parking lot and, of course, there is C-dawg's Black Matrix.
My suspicions are confirmed. I breathe a small sigh of relief. I play over in my head how it will go. I'll saunter into her classroom and say, "Who was the jackass honking at you?" And she'll look puzzled for only a second until she cracks into hysterical laughter as she realizes it was me all along.
I get out of my car.

Then I realize there is one more question I'll need to ask her.
"Did you remove the air freshener from your rearview since you arrived this morning?"

C-dawg drives a Black Matrix. It's a very new model. I'd recognize it anywhere.