Sometimes I drive like an asshole. I follow too closely, impatient with the speed of the old-farts visiting Arizona from Bemidji or Des Moines or even frigging Vancouver. You would think the older we get, the faster we would drive, knowing there’s not much time left. And once in a while I forget to use my blinker, or roll through a stop sign, and I certainly drive too fast for the weather conditions here; I am from Minnesota after all, and am used to driving through blizzards and tornadoes, so a little rain doesn’t freak me out as it does the rest of my driving peers here in the Southwest.
But I don’t get these people who drive like they are the only ones on the road. You see them every morning: applying makeup in their rear view mirrors, yacking on their cell phones, text-messaging, eating Egg McMuffins, even shaving for Christ’s sake. Don’t they realize that they are driving a rolling hunk of metal, plastic, and rubber weighing somewhere in the neighborhood of 2500 to 6000 pounds, one that is full of flammable liquid and fragile human bodies and is capable of giving all of us a really bad day if not kept tightly under control? Show some respect for your fellow motorists, people!
And to the jerk in the green mini-van this morning, weaving in and out of traffic and hanging six inches off my bumper: Shut up and DRIVE!