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The Gay Car Headlight
When I was about six or seven, I went with my mother and some friends' family to Maresias, a well-known beach São Paulo’s coast. At that time, in 1976, there was not even a direct connection via the Rio-Santos highway. We had to go to Mogi, go down the Mogi-Bertioga road, and go back a bit there. The beach was unknown at that time, only inhabited by fishermen.
The road was precarious and very dark. I remember well, we were in a newly launched Fiat 147, going down that mountain full of curves when I saw a road sign very similar to this one:
It said, “under fog use low beams”. The problem is that it was an old road sign, it was deteriorated over time… So you read:
I read “LUZ BIXA” instead “LUZ BAIXA”… And, for someone newly literate, that made sense! I’ll explain it. “BAIXA,” in Portuguese, is “low.” But “BIXO” sounds exactly like “BICHO,” which means “animal” or “gay” in its feminine form (“BICHA”). And that made me wonder… What the hell is “animal beams”? What would it be? A more suitable light to illuminate animals?
Yeah… It seemed logical to me. After all, we saw several animals crossing the road. It was a much more “wild” time. I was paying attention to the…
