My parents moved to coastal Massachusetts this summer, and this weekend I came to visit them in their new house. My mom’s always lived in New Jersey, so this is her first time pumping gas. After making fun of her, of course, we started talking about driving firsts.
My first car was my dad’s old car, which still had my dad’s personalized NR1A license plates on it. NR1A means that my dad is, um, a certain class of operator that is good at, um, ham radio things. I forget the details, but if you are a ham radio operator, it means something good, so when I’d drive that car, other drivers would (not unreasonably) assume that I was a radio operator, and honk HI in Morse at me. And I would (not unreasonably) jump nervously every single time.
“Yeah, I can still hear it. It’s four quick and then two quick, right, Dad?”
“Yes, it has a wonderful rhythm, it almost sounds like laughing.” My dad said.
“No, Dad. It might sound like laughter to a ham radio guy, but to me, a string of honking just sounds like terror.”
(Also, of course I pumped the gas for my mom. Driving is stressful enough.)
