Thing 212 Tail A Car

Ever notice that anyone in a movie who ever gets tailed automatically notices when someone's following their car? Cops tailing people are craptacular at doing so discretely. Hell, even the audience can tell when someone else is tailing the main protagonists. There's nothing even remotely subtle about it.

The problem is, when you've watched enough cop movies, and I have, you could be driving through town and you'll start getting paranoid that the car behind has been tailing you for the last three blocks, never mind that it's a one way system and there was no where else for them to go. It's time to start dodging them. I've ducked down alley ways and gone the wrong way through housing estates trying to shake people I convinced myself were following me.

Yes, I'm aware of how insane that sounds. It doesn't happen often, but it has happened.

Moving swiftly on... I've always thought I could do better.

I'm no James Bond or anything, and I drive a crappy red Seat Cordoba that's basically falling apart, but I'm full sure I could tail someone without them getting suspicious. Then after a little while I realised that it's not fun. And on top of that, I've no way of knowing if the car in front ever knew that I was tailing them. Clearly I didn't think this one all the way through, but what on earth was I thinking? There's no way on earth I'll ever know if this was successful or not, and it'll annoy me for ever.

So effectively I drove around for forty minutes behind a complete stranger. For nothing. We went from the dual carriage way from Shannon to Limerick, down onto the Dock Road. Around Harvey's Quay, past Arthur's Quay and out to the Dublin Road, through Castletroy, and as far as Annacotty. When the car pulled up in front of a house I decided to keep going. They may have been stopping to shake me, or more likely, they'd arrived at their house, and I was risking being reported to the Gardai.

It was at this point that I realised that not only will I never know if I was successful, but I was also looking like a complete nutjob sociopath.

I did try all the usual movie tricks though. I hung back. I changed lanes. I smoked a cigarette mysteriously. Yes, I know, that's a particular gift of mine. I'm very mysterious.

I should think about a career as a PI.