Stories from the road

Apart from my privileged friends coccooned in the city of New York, the rest of suburbia America usually have to deal with the very necessary evil known as driving. Now, I don't mind to drive and I enjoy the autonomy that operating a vehicle gives me. If I weren't too cheap to pay the speeding tickets, I may very well be a closet speed demon as well.

That said, I have two great hates in this world and I'm positive they are shared by many. One: I hate hate hate driving in morning rush hour. Aside from the bumper to bumper phenomenon, I am constantly either worrying that I will hit the car in front of me during a momentary lapse of concentration or that I would be rear-ended by some stupid, careless driver behind me. Usually my morning commutes consist of me looking longingly at the HOV lane next to me (high occupancy vehicle or the carpool lane) and wishing I had a blow up doll to pass for a decoy passenger. Einstein's theory of relativity never hits home quite as hard as during those times of solitary contemplation.

Secondly, I hate tailgaters. Ever since being rear-ended at 12:15 PM on January 31, 2006, I have been existing in a post-traumatic state where I expect to be rear-ended haplessly by some fool of a driver every time I venture behind the wheels. I've taken to eyeing my rear-view mirror obsessively as I talk to whomever is behind me. Usually the message is simple " Don't hit me please don't hit me please." Then of course, there are those obnoxious ones. The people who seem to enjoy kissing ass so much, they incorporate it into their daily commute. Last week, I had this Asian punk driving a sports car determined to keep the distance between us at around 5 cm, give or take a few sig figs. As we neared an exit ramp, he actually USED the exit ramp, swung around to my right and then cut in front of me. Now, the only reason the little punk isn't in the hospital is because I slammed my foot on the brakes to avoid a collision. Boy I was plenty mad though.

Last night, going home, a huge red SUV very menacingly tailed me for a good 10 minutes. Sometimes I slow down on purpose to annoy the driver even more. But sometimes I play it cool and completely ignore its existence. But this car was BIG and big makes me nervous because I don't particularly feel like getting whiplashed, should it decide to bulldoze into me for the hell of it. Get this, even going down the exit ramp, when you are supposed to slow down to about 30 mph, the red SUV still tailed me like mad. That is just pure asshole behavior. All I can do of course is roll my eyes and rant on my blog, but I don't understand why people have to be so aggressive when they are driving. Maybe they are trying to compensate for the smallness, the pettiness of their actual lives.

And today, as I was once again in bumper to bumper traffic, I saw this grandma behind me, in a snazzy sports car. She was this little old lady, and I thought, well, maybe at least SHE won't tail me. But instead, the grandma got sick of the slow traffic and tore into the HOV lane with ferocious speed and then took off. And there I was, sadly gazing at the dust trail left behind her and knowing that I have a couple more miles of bumper to bumper to endure in the road ahead.