Last Saturday I was driving my family’s Mustang convertible with the top down. I’m going down a four-lane road at 40 mph. I end up next to a guy on a Harley, and he matches my speed. Being a person who likes to avoid social interactions, I’m looking straight ahead when I hear, “Hey, there!”
I look over and the guy on the Harley is smiling at me about three feet from where I’m sitting in the driver’s seat. I was so taken aback, I just grinned and said “hey” in response. We then proceeded to have a full-on conversation, which went like this:
Harley Guy: “How are you?”
Me: “Good! How are you?”
HG: “What are you listening to?”
Me: “I actually don’t know, it’s playing from my phone.” (I was listening to a Spotify playlist of alternative music that I assumed a 65-year-old on a Harley had no interest in.)
HG: “Is that thing stock?”
Me: “Yeah. It’s actually an ex-rental. It’s just a V6 auto.”
He then gives his bike some gas and shoots away from me. I continue going the same speed as he slows down, so I end up catching up. I say, “Not bad!”
He and another bike that was in front of him ended up getting stuck behind a bit of traffic and I end up in front of them. And that was the end of the conversation. After this interaction, I switched to the Led Zeppelin CD in the player and smiled for the rest of the drive.
I cannot express how weird of a feeling it was to be driving down the road at 40 mph and having an entirely uninterrupted conversation with someone outside of the car. He was only three feet away and there was no glass, metal, or fabric, between us. Nothing. Hell, we could’ve even high fived if we wanted. There is no doubt in my mind that it was one of the weirdest and coolest experiences I’ve had driving; it definitely made my day and sold me on convertibles forever, as if I wasn’t sold on them already.