Long-Term Couple’s Road Trip Chats Now Just Commenting On Other Drivers’ Bad Driving

TRACEY BENDINGER | Local News | Contact

Hollywood would have us believe that road trips are a time for deep and meaningfuls, ABBA medleys and gazing into your lover’s eyes. That may have been the case during the honeymoon period, but those days are now a distant memory for local long-term couple Brad and Rosie Lingard.

Now entering their 12th year together, the couple’s road trip chats mainly consist of scheduling and saying “look at this idiot” every kilometre or so.

Speaking with The Advocate after a recent pilgrimage to visit their south-eastern relatives and escape the mouse plague ravaging much of the Diamantina, Rosie says she used to try and fight it, but eventually gave in once it became clear that Brad couldn’t talk about anything else while such lunatics were endangering their fellow road users.

“I mean, it’s great that he’s so alert, but it gets a bit tiresome after the second hour,” she said.

“He’s like a broken record. ‘Look how close this idiot is’, or just randomly wincing at a near crash up ahead, which, mind you, was not that close.”

“I used to try to talk about other stuff, but now a well-timed ‘yeah, woah, that’s crazy’ keeps him happy enough.”

However, according to Brad, he turned to commenting on other drivers out of necessity.

“Rosie just sits on her phone the whole time. If I don’t entertain myself somehow, I’ll drive us directly into one of those idiots on purpose.”

More to come.