DeRanged Rover

I'm driving home from preschool on the highway and in front of me is this type of utility vehicle that seems pretty common in Australia, it's kind of like a pickup truck, except the walls around the truck bed are only about 6 inches high. The front of the thing looked like a Range Rover.



This is the same type of vehicle from the back.

In the back of the truck is a very big, white dog with a muzzle on. We are on a highway... and there are practically no walls on the back of the truck! There are various pieces of small equipment in the back of the truck with the dog-- it looks like any/all of it could go flying out at any time. Enough said.

No, enough is not said, because the logo on the truck- where I am assuming it had said "Range Rover", had been altered (in a very professional way, so it looked original) to DERANGED ROVER.

And all I am thinking is, the only way anyone would believe this insanity is if I took a photo, but at 80 km/hour that may not be a good idea. And if there was going to be gun carrying Australian, this could quite possibly be him... and he may not like being photographed.

I finagled the camera out of my purse anyway, just in case should be a slow down in traffic-- this really needed to be documented for all to see. Seriously, my camera battery was dead, ugh.

I exit the highway. I usually look forward to the wait at this particular traffic light each afternoon because there's an apartment building where all the Sulpher-Crested Cockatoos come to sit on one guy's balcony and he feeds them. It's like being at some kind of freakish urban bird show.


Photo: The view from my drivers seat-- you can see the Cockatoo on the balcony in the background.


Photo: The man on his balcony with a couple of the wild Cockatoos.


A close up of the extremely loud-mouthed Sulpher-Crested Cockatoos, this bunch was on the antenna above my house.

Anyway, as I slow down to my regular bird show spot, out of no where--SMASH!

Yep, someone rear-ended me. Thankfully, everyone was fine. My car didn't even budge-- it's like a tank. I look in the rear view mirror. Seriously dude... it was the DERANGED ROVER, muzzled dog guy!

Is that insane???

Do you think it would be rude to ask him to pose with his car and dog-- so I can take a picture with my cell phone (since the other camera was dead)?

So if this all wasn't bizarre enough, the guy was like super nice. It was the most pleasant post-car accident experience I could have imagined. He explained that he had glanced down to answer his cell phone (well that wasn't very smart was it?) and oops. But he was all,.. "Take my drivers license info, here's all my contact info...blah, blah, blah". And I was thinking--- should I call the police? I can't believe I never got my Australian drivers license, what if they arrest me? I figured I'll just take his info and get the hell out of there before his dog breaks free of the muzzle and eats me and my children.

And for those of you who know my husband-- he is so funny. Since the 2-seater car he bought isn't working out for us (hmmm, why wouldn't that be a perfect car for a family with 2 small children, duh?), we had been looking to buy a more family friendly vehicle. When I called him at the office to let him know about the little incident, he basically ran out of the office to go to the Honda dealership for that new Odyssey we had been talking about-- we hadn't even test driven it, but he was ready to make a purchase.

Did I mention that everything in Australia closes by 5:30pm?

About an hour later he called me to see if we had any alcohol in the house, because he would be needing a stiff drink upon arrival. He had tried to go to the dealership, accidentally drove by it, which led him onto a highway with no exits for 20 minutes.