Horse-drawn Carriages: the Bane of City Streets

It was after ten o’ clock when my wife and I left the restaurant, both of us stuffed and ready for the drive home. Keys back from the valet, we hopped into the SUV (paying for parking makes my blood boil, but that’s another story). It seemed so simple: just get in the car and go. The roads would be clear and the traffic light. We’d be home in no time, or so we thought.

A half block from the restaurant, stuck behind a string of cars, rolling forward at five miles per hour, my wife and I both frustrated, she asked, “What’s the problem?”

We both looked ahead into the dim distance. “We just teleported back into the eighteenth century and we’re stuck behind Jean Valjean,” I said. “It’s a horse-drawn carriage.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “We’re doomed.”

I had to agree with her. Neither one of us hates horses, but the streets of Austin, of any city, are no place for horse-drawn carriages. These antiquated contraptions may be adorable relics of a bygone era of innocence, but they belong in parks like New York’s Central Park where streets close at dusk and they don’t leave a steaming trail of poop for other drivers to follow.

One by one, each driver ahead of us found a way to pull past him and escape. Was there a formal ceremony? Did you have to beg permission?

“Excuse me, your Lordship. Might I pass?” perhaps.

Or “Pardon me, your Grace. We’d like to return to the twenty-first century if it’s not too much trouble.”

Once you repeated the magic words, did the driver tip his jaunty top hat? “Prithee continue.”

When it was our turn, I rolled down the window. “Nice coach, Lancelot!” I shouted.

He didn’t hear me, or at least pretended not to. He clip-clopped along, the sound of the beast’s hooves fading behind us. Am I the only one who wants to bury these artifacts?