You'll crash and burn in the bumper cars at Jersey's steel pier

Maybe I should mention, something odd happened on my way from the train station to my brother and his wife's house. Well, I made the trip that way, so of course something odd happened. But in this case, I went for a taxi to get the last bit home since my brother was not hawkishly watching my every movement and tweet waiting for updates. The taxi driver didn't quite say yes and didn't quite say no to my request to be taken to (address), but, he didn't quite protest when I opened the door and carried my bags in either. After an awkward moment he started down the road.

And a few blocks along the way, he stopped, at a group of young men standing outside a bar. Why he stopped there, I don't know, but he began talking with one of them about where they were going, and how many of them were going there. I tried to, you know, bring a little attention to myself as the customer who was already actually there in the taxi and maybe we could go myself, please? But without my quite being able to stop it, they got in, shoving me over to the left, and we set off the rest of the drive.

Of course I don't wish to be an argumentative person and I'm happy to extend a favor to other people where I can, but I wish to deny that I was being too passive about this matter. I was fascinated to see where it would end up. They would end up in Monmouth Junction, after an interaction with me that consisted entirely of asking where I was from, and pronouncing that cool. I ended up at my sister-in-law's.

At my sister-in-law's, I knocked on the door and nobody answered. I knocked again and nobody answered. No lights were on. Maybe they were out. I had brought a second set of keys to my car, so I was able to go home on my own, but still, it was a bit odd.

The next morning my sister-in-law phoned my father to ask whether I had somehow gotten my car, since it had gone missing and she'd have been horribly embarrassed at losing it. No, everything's fine, although I haven't had the chance to get back up there and pick up my primary keys yet.

Trivia: From 1 March 200 to 1 March 300 the Julian and the (proleptic) Gregorian calendar dates matched. Source: Mapping Time: The Calendar and its History, EG Richards.

Currently Reading: The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking The Poet Within, Stephen Fry. If I learn nothing else from this, I've learned that when I get really angry about something and turn my fury to my writing --- shut up, it happens --- I put the shakings of my rage in Anglo-Saxon verse.