This is something that happened to me back when I was about 18–19 years old and it still makes me cringe a little (okay and laugh) when I think about it.
It was a winter evening, snowy and cold and I had evening classes. My older brother had promised to pick me up afterward. I stepped outside after class, tired, hungry and slightly irritated already and noticed he was late. Not a great combination for my mood.
After a while, I spotted a dark Volkswagen Passat by the roadside and thought, “Finally.” I walked straight up, opened the back door, threw my backpack inside and immediately started venting without pause, how hungry I was, how tired I was and how we
really needed to leave right now.
I got into the front seat, kept going for a moment and finished with something like, “Let’s go already so we can get out of here.”
Then I heard a chuckle from beside me… which was not my brother’s voice.
Silence.
It took about half a second for my brain to fully process that I had just stormed into a complete stranger’s car and started giving them a lecture.
I froze like a deer in headlights, then basically launched myself out of the car.
At the same time, my brother called out from the car right next to it saying he was there.
As if that wasn’t enough, the actual driver of the Passat leaned out and said loudly that I had left my backpack on his back seat.
Of course I had.
I went back, retrieved it, muttered an apology and finally got into my brother’s car, who had, of course, witnessed the whole thing and was already laughing.
All I could say was: “We are never talking about this again.”
And to this day… we mostly don’t.
