We used to live in the hills. When you live in the hills, you know the rules of the road like the back of your hand. You know what I mean. When you park, bank your wheels. Put on the emergency brake. Keep your car in gear: preferably reverse. If you have a dodgy battery, always park going downhill so you can pop the clutch to get the engine started.

It’s all fairly easy and really logical. One of the most important things to remember is that the person coming up the hill has the right of way. Makes sense when you think about it really. If you’re coming up the hill and you have to stop, you lose momentum. This is especially true if you have a manual transmission.

I did have a manual transmission. I drove a Volvo station wagon. It was my sacrifice to parenthood. I didn’t make too many sacrifices to the cause, and this was my grand one. I gave up the MG for a Volvo. *sigh* It’s still painful to contemplate.

The particular morning I’m thinking about had started out ordinarily enough. We were on the morning run to Dracula Heart School (yes, they accepted blood as payment). We liked to take a little hill behind ours, because it was not well-travelled and it cut a couple minutes off the travel time. When you’re wrestling kids into the car to get to school, a couple minutes can make a big difference. So, we’d go over the hill, around the lake, and on to the bridge, and Bob’s your uncle, we were there!

As we approached the hill, the street was deserted as usual. I turned left onto the hill itself. The street was so narrow that only one car at a time could get by. If a car were parked on the street, they had to pull up on where the curb should be. There was no sidewalk and the other side was the hill itself. There was no question of two-way traffic: it was one car at a time.

As I approached the top of the hill, a car came barrelling over the crest. The driver made no move to stop. He never contemplated backing up. In a self defence move, I pulled to the right as far as I could. I was climbing up the hillside. The Volvo was not happy. My kids were freaking out.

Then, the guy drove by and before I could point out the illegality of his move he leaned out his window and yelled at me, “Don’t you know that the car going down the hill has the right of way, DICKFACE!?!”

Dickface. Images from Hieronymus Bosch filled my head. Dickface. It was so evocative. I could see it. I started to laugh. My kids were outraged. “Did you hear what he called you?!” they demanded. I nodded, but I couldn’t talk. I was laughing too hard. Tears of laughter rolled down my cheeks. Dickface. God, it was too funny! The kids couldn’t understand why I wasn’t angry. Once I stopped laughing, I tried to explain; but they still didn’t get it.

Years later, I was standing in the Prado museum in Madrid with HB looking at the Bosch’s ‘Garden of Earthly Delights’ . I started to chuckle. Under my breath I said,“Dickface.” HB leaned over and whispered, “Don’t you know the car going down the hill has the right of way?” No one around us could understand why these two locos were standing in front of the Bosch and laughing.