Arctangential

I drive a lot these days. Before I got this job, I drove about 10 miles in a week. Now I drive about 70 miles a day, and I am once again reminded why I went to such lengths before to be sure I was able to walk to work. Driving makes me angry. It makes me sad. It makes me want to kill.

Actually, the driving itself isn’t the real problem — it’s all these other idiots on the road. In fact, I’m pretty sure that I have discovered the true cause of what people call “road rage”; I call it “road dumb”. It’s like when people get in their cars, after putting on their seat belts and checking their mirrors, they take out their brains and set them carefully in the cup holders. All I’m trying to say is this: you’re in control of a 2000 pound piece of metal traveling at speeds exceeding 60 miles per hour. Pay the fuck attention!

There’s only one thing I would like to add to this, and that is a note about turn signals. They are not there to make your car more “flashy”. They are not meant to be used as a metronome so that your child may practice his flute on his way to soccer practice. They are a communication device. You can use them to tell the other drivers around you, “Hello, I am about to swerve my three trillion erg* death machine 3 inches in front of your front bumper,” giving them that extra few seconds to swear at you for being an idiot.

I need either a chauffeur or a private road.

*: 2000 pounds moving at 60 miles an hour makes 3.26e12 ergs, roughly. I’m not sure that’s right, though — feel free to check my math for me.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 12th, 2002 at 9:48 am and is filed under Today I Ate Soup. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.