Come Blow Your Horn and Count Them

According to UNCLE JOHN'S BATHROOM READER the average American driver will blow his or her horn 15, 520 in their life time.

I would guess that the average driver drives about 40 years.  That would mean that average driver would toot his horn 388 times a  year, or 1.06 times a day.

In horn blowing  I am way below average, I go years without blowing my horn at all.

As a teenager, as a general rule, I would blow my horn almost daily to get friends' attention, or when they were expecting me, tooting when I drive up, announcing my arrival, so to speak.

In the past dozen or so years blowing my car horn is so rare, I can almost remember each time I blew it.

For instance the time a few months ago when  a car was pulling over into my lane and evidently didn't see me.  At that time I had not used the horn on the new truck I was driving and I pressed near the center of the steering wheel and suddenly a computerized  voice from the dash asked me how could it help me.   That was more unnerving than the car that I swerved to miss.

I think the most memorable of tooting my horn was when I was a teenager with a 55 Ford that I bought used that had a lot wrong with it.  One of the things wrong with it was its horn.  It randomly blew its horn whenever the notion would strike it.  So, one Sunday night, I was in a long line at a traffic light.  I figured I would have to wait at least two or maybe three light changes before I could go.  I was in a hurry.  Sitting in a dark parking lot across the street was a police car with its' lights out.  Next to me was another parking lot of a church.  It was almost full, with the Sunday night congregation's cars.  I wanted to turn right at the light.  So, I figured, why not?  I turned into the church's parking lot, turned off my lights and very slowly crept through the parking lot.  Then my car took it on itself to start blowing its horn.  It honked and honked.  The right stars must have twinkled at me, I got away with it.  The cop either ignored the horn blowing creeping through the church parking lot or something else was on his mind.