Thom - A true story

There's a phrase you hear a lot - 'I was totally lost for words' and it's a feeling we can all identify with. We've all come across situations when we simply had no idea what the appropriate response could be. Well; try this for size. True story.

Back in my driving instructor days, I had a pupil called Thom. Not Tom; Thom. His parents had called him Thomas, so by his logic, it was spelled Thom, but pronounced 'Tom', and he was, frankly, not prepossessing.
He was in his forties, around five five or six, with yellowed teeth, nicotine stained face and hands, and fingernails which, every time I saw them, made me thank God I'd never have to see his feet. He never seemed to change his clothes. The collar and shoulders of his jacket were slick and greasy from his lank, unwashed long hair and he smelled like a wet dog. On the whole, not a good look. I felt bad the first time I saw, and caught a whiff of him. My initial reaction had been a combination of rising gorge and suppressed sniggering, and I knew that was judgemental and superficial of me. Just because he looked odd didn't mean that he wasn't a perfectly nice person. Imagine my relief then, when he turned of to be one of the least likeable people I have ever met in my life. He hit the trifecta – weird looking, foul smelling and thoroughly obnoxious.

He was racist, sexist and homophobic. He was an utter misanthrope who hated the sight of anybody enjoying their lives and had not a good word to say about anything or anybody apart from himself. Worst of all, he used to tell me the most pornographically explicit details of his doubtless fictional sex life which would have been stomach-turning coming from anyone, let alone someone who put an image in your head of a mossy-toothed gnome who smelled like stilton rubbing up against a terrified rape victim. All I ever wanted to do was avoid any form of conversation and hope to just get through his hour the best I could.

What was, perhaps, even less endearing was the constant commentary he gave when he was driving, which consisted of two things; criticism of other drivers along the lines of

“Thirty five in a thirty zone? He must think it's a race track”

“See that? No signal – he must think we're all mind readers”

“See how he changed lanes there? Why can't he just make up his mind?”

Inevitably, the other side of this coin was his constant bigging-up of his own limited abilities. Unfortunately for him, his triumphs were few and far between, so he resorted to telling me about the things that he hypothetically would have done perfectly, had the situation been completely different – a situation known as the 'If your auntie had balls she'd be your uncle hypothesis'.

“I passed that bus at the bus stop, but, had he indicated his intention to pull out, I would have given way if safe to do so”
“I went through that green light, but was ready to stop, had it changed to amber, though not, of course, without checking my mirror first”
“I have left the car in fourth gear, but if this gradient were steeper, I should consider changing down to third.”

Those quotes are verbatim. This happened maybe twenty years ago, but I remember them like toothache. The one I'll never forget, though, was this. Please bear in mind that this is happening in London. We were driving along a perfectly straight, perfectly flat road with no other traffic in sight, when,from Thom I heard

“*HA!* Well (pause) you know what happened there, of course”
“Sorry?” (hadn't seen a damn thing)

“I forgot, momentarily, that if you are passing a horse, you should never sound your horn (pause) It's a good job there wasn't one there, because I might very well have done so.”

So, now, what's the most lost for words you've ever been?