The opposite

There are some old memories that from time to time pop in my head. Episodes of no apparent consequence that happened decades ago. I reckon that this is true for everyone. These linger in the back of my mind and materialise to my conscious self randomly.

Many years ago I was in a car with a friend - we were heading to his house. It was dark and raining heavily - visibility was bad. It was a miserable evening. At some point in a crossroad, another car wanted to merge into our lane. My friend flickered the lights to signal to not merge, since it was unsafe. The other car went ahead and merged. My friend braked and honked. Nothing else of importance ensued. When we arrived at his house, he shared the tale with his dad. His father said that by doing the light signals the other person just assumed we were giving them permission to merge. An action that was so clear in our head, meant the complete opposite to someone else.

Now and then this memory comes to my mind. I don’t know why.