At the time, we didn't really understand that the pattern-matching abilities of the human mind can easily find any abnormalities. If you've got a cat, for instance, you can probably sense when that little shit is trying to steal Twinkies off the counter (I told you no, Bilby.) Work as a mini golf supervisor, you can make a pretty educated guess about which group of teens is going to throw your clubs in the water feature. And if you drive a total shitbox like me, you can tell right away when something isn't right, even if you don't know what it is.

Let me provide an example. Last month, I was heading down the highway, doing my periodic flooring-it exercises to pass everyone that was going slower than Mach 8. This kind of strain challenges every mechanical item in the car, which is why I subject it to the intense maintenance regimen described as "don't." Suddenly, I could sense that the car was down on power, that it was unhappy with some shenanigan or even shenanigans that I had been commanding it to perform in recent memory. Rather than push it, I trusted my gut and pulled off to the nearest rest stop to take a look and see what went wrong.

But then I ran out of hearts. And I wasn't finished with violence yet, so I decided to turn on my own music.

"What are you doing" say the youths. I shrug.

The youths begin to bop along ironically.

"They hate this," I think. "I am winning."

"Hang on," says a youth. "What is that."

I realise something is going wrong but not what to do about it. "It's Italian," I mutter

"Are you Italian?"

"No, I just speak it."

"Oh shit. This goes hard actually," says a youth, whose bopping along no longer appears to be ironic "Is that rap? There's Italian rap? Whoa. Took me a second"

"What's it about?" says another youth.

My inner Public Transport Etiquette Absolutist and my inner Italian Music Evangelist are now at war. Fatally poised to decide the balance is the fact that I am a middle aged woman who has just had her musical tastes flattered by Youths.

"It's called Arresto Cardiaco, which obviously means cardiac arrest, and it's about a panic attack," I say. They lean over to peer at my phone.

"He must have some bad panic attacks," says the first youth thoughtfully.

"Maybe he gets them all the time," agrees another.

Somewhere along the way, and I realise I don't know when it happened, they turned off their own music and are now bopping along to mine.

I can't bring myself to turn it off.

Other passengers stare at me with open loathing. They are right to do so.