Red Mist

Well it's six pm Sunday when I'm writing this and I'm still angry about something that happened at four thirty pm this afternoon. I was given a job to pickup at the Kings which is a pub right at the top of Barrow's narrow Ormsgill Lane. It was dark and pouring down and, as it's a bad place to pick-up from I had my hazard lights on and was parked as close in as possible. I had been there a minute or two and four or five cars had passed without problem, then a car stopped alongside me and the driver blew his horn and wound his window down and began cursing and swearing at me for all he was worth. After a minute or two of this I'm afraid to say I saw red and blew my top, when he drove off I shot after him leaving my fare stood in the street. I overtook him and stopped intending to give him a piece of my mind. He jumped out of his car and squared up to me and started more abuse and swearing right into my face, it was then that I smelt the reason for the overreaction and over the top behavior. "You've been drinking I'm calling the police" I said, he backed off and didn't say another word, he just shrugged and walked slowly back to his car and drove away. Did I call the police? well no to my eternal regret I never, I didn't rate is a an emergency and so didn't think it appropriate to call 999. By the time I found the number for the local police station ,I had remembered that the last few times I had rang it only to be connected to a call centre seventy miles away and speaking to a civilian employee who said they would ring back in twenty minutes or so. Why oh why haven't we got the non emergency but urgent number that they were promising us last year. They say this was because of the cost, well I guess they are saving money on call outs if folk don't bother ringing in at all. But I did get his number and I shall pass it on to someone I know, maybe this will have scared him if not they will be watching.