…a hole big enough to make CDs skip and spill hot, frothy beverages all over the place and even potentially blow out the tires on a guy’s car…

…a hole kind of like that one right over there.

For those of you playing along at home, Exhibit A here is one of several behemoth-size potholes that have recently taken up residence in my fair, little suburban community right here in the beautiful Tampa Bay Area.  They got a great location, mind you – a nice, waterfront area right near the main entrance with easy access to both the highway and other nearby amenities, and I guess I wouldn’t really be all that upset about it except for that they’re freaking potholes!!!  Why can’t I drive to my own house without feeling like I’m going to fall into one and wind up in the center of the Earth?!

I mean, seriously, folks – I wish I could fictionalize gargantuan holes of this incredible magnitude, but these ridiculous chasms truly are the Grand Poobahs of craters into the Earth’s crust, the likes of which have never before been seen on this strange, blue sphere that we call home.  Well, I take that back … I do have this one theory that these ominous pitfalls could be similar to the ones left behind by the meteor that killed off the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago, but that’s really just a theory at this point, kind of like the possibility that maybe they were caused by King Kong and Godzilla wrestling through my neighborhood or even some sort of rogue Death Star that was casually “testing” its primary weapon and just got a little out of control…

Hey, you never know!

Regardless of who or what militant overlord is actually responsible for these major inconveniences to the final leg of my otherwise leisurely drive home, though, one thing is certain – our Homeowners Association needs to get off their gold-plated heineys and get to fixin’ those asphalt-deficient deathtraps, pronto!  That is, as soon as they’re done patrolling the neighborhood in search of unauthorized drapery colors and cars that have tragically somehow been parked on the streets *gasp* between 6pm and 6am, of course.  Let’s not get crazy now … gaping pits littering our subdivision’s main driveway and endangering all who dare to enter our quaint, upper-middle class community are one thing, but parking on the curb – that shall not stand!

Really, I don’t care how they do it – fill them in with a few extra copies of the 250 pages of incessant nagging that make up our HOA bylaws, or maybe they could just add it to their schedule so that after they’re done “closing up” the pools and exercise room at 10:00pm sharp, they could just take turns filling the holes themselves! I’m sure being on the Board of Directors for so long has helped them to develop a thick skin anyways, and if it helps to prevent my favorite Gloria Estefan CD from skipping just before it gets to the best part every time Turn the Beat Around comes on, then as far as I’m concerned my dues and miscellaneous maintenance fees couldn’t be better spent without installing the water slide and complimentary wet bar that I keep requesting down by the pool.

And don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I despise our local HOA or anything – more so, I just really hate holes and I think that for my $120/month, I shouldn’t have to feel like I’m cruising the cobbled streets of London every time I pull out of my own driveway!  It has absolutely nothing to do with still being bitter about the mean note that they sent me earlier this spring for “not taking my Christmas lights and/or decorations down on time” when realistically it had only been three or four months – tops – since Santa himself had come to visit the previous year.  I’m just a man with a hole problem who wants to listen to Gloria Estefan without falling into the center of the Earth…

Did I mention that these are really big potholes???

A funny thing happened to me on the way home the other day.

Well, funny for some of us involved, anyways…

You know how when you’re just driving along, minding your own business, and then all of a sudden, you hit an alligator in the middle of the road?! Of course you don’t, because aside from Florida, that’s something that really doesn’t happen anywhere else in the entire world. When I used to live up in Michigan, it certainly wasn’t uncommon to see deer alongside the roads and occasionally one would get hit because when it comes down to it, deer are extraordinarily dumb creatures that wouldn’t know a suburban if they ran into one head-on, but alligators, on the other hand … well, let’s just say that “dumb” isn’t exactly the kind of adjective that I would recommend throwing around with regards to a prehistoric beast that could rather easily crush any random part of your body in its gaping jaws like a rag doll in a particularly hungry vise!

As you would only expect for such a tale, it was a dark and stormy night, and yours truly had just gotten off after pulling a double down at the old crab shack … well, I was driving home at night and it was raining, anyways.  I was driving well under the speed limit, as any good driver does when hazardous driving conditions are present, although I guess I didn’t know until a moment too late that said road hazards also included a six foot lizard with an overbite!  It all happened so quickly, I only saw his mighty incisors in the roadway for a split second before *bump*.  He looked mad, which I suppose is probably pretty normal when you’re just trying to cross the road and cars keep running over your tail…

It took me about a mile or so down the road before I finally put the pieces together and realized that I had, in fact, just ran over a giant log with teeth and an appetite!  At that point I immediately turned around and drove back, half expecting to find a wounded gator hobbling off into the ditch, but nothing – no tail slipping out of sight, no flattened alligator carcass obstructing traffic, not a single sign of my scaly, slithering speed bump anywhere.  Of course, that’s when the worrying began to kick in…

For the rest of the trip home, my mind raced as I pondered the situation and where exactly my gimpy gator might’ve disappeared to – maybe he was in a hurry when my front tire came along, so he was already running and thus long gone by the time I had circled back.  Or maybe he actually ran into me and as a result, felt kind of embarrassed about the whole situation and took off cowering in shame before his other alligator friends could give him a hard time about being such a klutz of a lizard.

Or maybe my absolute worst of fears had been realized and he was actually still stuck underneath my car, just waiting for me to stop and get out so that he could grab my feet and begin his violent, albeit arguably warranted revenge!  He’d wait until I was back home and the garage door had closed, thus eliminating both the risk of having witnesses and also the majority of my potential escape routes in the process.  Then, once I opened my car door, out would pop his flattened, little head to nip at my ankles before my feet even touched the ground, ready to inflict onto me a world of hurt normally reserved for water buffalo in Discovery Channel specials.  Before long he’d drag my lifeless, battered body back into the makeshift lair that he had created underneath my car to be feasted on at his leisure, biding his time until morning when my wife would return home and open the garage door, thus allowing him to slink off back into the wild as nature’s not-so-silent assassin once again…

Thankfully, though, all of that didn’t actually happen and my fate was spared with a minimal amount of jumpiness once I finally returned home and slowly dared to inch open my car door!  I did check underneath the car with a flashlight – from a distance – just to be sure, but luckily my carnivorous victim was nowhere to be found.  Then again, I suppose one might argue that not knowing whether a vengeance-seeking gator is out there on the loose somewhere, plotting to one day return the favor when I least expect it could be even worse than just getting dragged to my own horrific mauling and getting it over with in the first place!

Only in Florida, indeed…

Oh good – you’re still here!

Sorry, folks – I would’ve been here sooner, but I ran into a little “traffic problem” along the way, and by “traffic problem” I mean to say that I got stuck behind someone who opted to go approximately .0000002 mph in a 55 mph zone on what seems to be by far the longest stretch of unpassable, two-lane highway this side of civilization. Frankly, I’m surprised I even made it here at all because at the rate I was clipping along, with chipmunks and squirrels zipping by me on the side of the road like I was moving backwards, I was starting to get concerned that by the time I finally did arrive, the home that I knew would’ve by then slowly deteriorated over time, making way for a new golf course or strip mall or whatever else tends to blossom up in the middle of suburbia when something dies a slow and arduous death…

Sadly, this idea of driving without actually moving seems to be the painful norm here in this small, Floridian town that I call home. Some folks “playfully” like to call Florida God’s waiting room, which is cute and all until you realize just how big of a parking lot that God needs for his medical facilities! If you ask me, the almighty needs to look into building a few parking garages or something because his current plan of just letting his patients roam the streets in their cars at the speed of nothing just isn’t working and I’m fairly certain that I’m not the only one who’s at the end of my rope here on this one!

Of course, just like in any community, there are some parts of town that are better than others – for example, the roads not in our town are infinitely more traverseable than those within a lug nuts throw of city hall…except on Thursdays when that one senior center just on the outskirts hosts BINGO night, anyways. And mind you, it doesn’t help that my own particular little village also happens to be one of several specks on Florida’s landscape that plays host to snow birds by the trillions who flock here each winter so as not to wreak havoc on their own snow and ice-laden communities with sub-adequate driving skills and nothing but time to kill until Wheel comes on at 7:00pm. Let me tell you, until it’s taken you 15 minutes to drive a mile and a half because you’re stuck behind a small houseboat driving fifteen miles a month down the highway with its left blinker on the entire duration of the trip, you haven’t truly known misery…

Mind you, though, it’s not only the elderly delaying my transit home after a long and arduous day, as we certainly can’t have a conversation about bad driving without remembering the soccer moms and hockey dads in their mini-vans and SUVs, shuttling a battalion of children to one extracurricular after another in a desperate attempt to live vicariously through little league tournaments and ballet recitals, all the while driving profusely down the center of the road at 20 under the speed limit while barking grocery lists to their significant others or sharing gossip from the latest PTA meeting with others who are simultaneously wreaking havoc in their own sport utility vehicles in other neighborhoods both near and far. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve gotten stuck behind one of these lazy road squatters just distracted enough to not allow me a single opportunity to pass because they’re conveniently speeding up and then subsequently slowing back down each and every time we get to a suitable passing area, I’d probably have enough to at least take a cab a couple of nights a week…which actually might help quite a bit!

Imagine – if only these torturous souls knew of the insanity that they were passively inflicting on the twenty cars lined up behind them. I’d like to think that there would be a general threshold that eventually kicks in when every trip behind the wheel gets a driver aggressive honks, middle fingers, and death threats that one would finally come to the realization of, “Wow – maybe I am a horrible driver! How’s about I do the world a favor and just take the bus from this point forward?!” If only it was that easy, and gumdrops rained from the heavens, and every street was lined with the sparkles of silver and gold, and instead of collecting taxes the government held an enormous, coast-to-coast ice cream social once a year on April 15^th.

Yes, such a world free of vehicular ineptitude would certainly be grand, but alas, our currently reality lies littered with snail-paced drivers and at the end of the day, aside from purchasing a steamroller (which is really expensive – trust me, I’ve looked into it!), there’s little else we can do besides grin and bear it, and buy stock in whatever company makes those squishy, little stress balls shaped like SUVs and station wagons. Just know that the next time you’re out there stuck in traffic behind somebody who would rather do the daily crossword puzzle out of the paper than actually drive anything even vaguely resembling the posted speed limit, you are not alone, for no doubt on a similar highway I’m doing the exact same thing.

The only difference between you and me – I’m getting more material for these things every single time! So look for that new book on How I Learned to Stop Letting Idiots on the Road Get to Me and Love Taking the Bus hitting the shelves of your local bookseller any day now…

Warning: The following humor column depicts scenes of graphic violence that, while hopefully both amusing and quite understandable given the sheer ignorance of the situation, is still unfortunately and entirely hypothetical and thus, one should not attempt to recreate these fictional interactions in real life unless he or she has a strong, yet twisted desire to end up in the pokey themselves. The author cannot be held liable for any events that may result from the dropping of soap if the reader opts to ignore this warning and act on those impulses that we’ve all been fighting ever since one Model-T driver cut off another without using his turn signal back in 1908…

So anyways, you ever have one of those days when you just wanted to get out of your car and punch the driver behind you squarely in the face?

For some reason, I’m just taking a wild guess that I’m not the only guy who’s ever had a day like that because, well, there are just way too many brain-dead idiots out there behind the wheel for me to be the one having all of the fun all by myself! Maybe they cut you off while coming out of a driveway onto a busy highway without bothering to look first. Maybe they were of the belief that those big, red octagonal signs everywhere simply don’t apply to them. My own personal run-in with vehicular ignorance today was with the guy who opts to drive with one hand on the wheel and the other on his horn because wherever he has to go is by far more important than where I’m going! As I looked in the mirror at the aging baby boomer behind me, railing on the center of his steering wheel like a free sample of Rogain was going to pop out if he pressed hard enough, all I could think was “What if life were more like a video game…”

Specifically, Grand Theft Auto.

You know, sometimes when communication and reasoning simply won’t do, if there’s one thing that the entertainment industry has taught us over the years, it’s that sometimes violence is the answer and when confronted with the proposition to either be a better driver or get a baseball bat to the head before having your car jacked, well, let’s just say that people usually tend to see the error in their ways! At least the ones that don’t go trying to be heroes or anything, but they get what’s coming to them…

Of course, we all know that we’re not really allowed to drag people out of their cars and beat compliance into them … at least those of us who aren’t LA cops, anyways … but how else are the rest of us supposed to deal with those idiots out there who think that the pavement was created solely for their transportation needs?! Maybe traditional violence isn’t exactly the answer, but that’s not to say that a healthy tap on the noggin with a padded bat when one acts up behind the wheel wouldn’t do some good! Perhaps we could even take it a step further and take a cue from psychiatrists ’round the world by fitting our steering wheels with some sort of electroshock capabilities that would trigger when it has been detected that the driver is acting like a complete and utter moron. Or even better, two words – ejection seats!

Hey, it could happen…

In the meantime, the only real good way that this writer has to deal with road rage is, well, by not driving altogether, and while good, old Mother Nature might appreciate the exhaust break, I still need to get from A-to-B somehow and my options are somewhat limited. The farthest I’ve ever walked is seven miles and I damn near collapsed when that was over, I haven’t owned a bicycle in over ten years, and everyone always laughs at me when I wear those spandex shorts that I bought for rollerblading – what else is a guy to do?! Come to think of it, in Grand Theft Auto after a certain point you could actually find a tank and all those who made it that far will agree that the game got pretty freakin’ sweet when you could literally run over anybody in your way, so maybe there’s more to that idea than meets the eye!

Sure, the convertible is cool, but you can’t run entire cars over with it. If anybody needs me, I’ll be doing a little “research” on usedcars.com – keyword: tank. Let’s see anybody honk at me then…

You know, I always try my best to keep things new and fresh when I’m writing these columns, taking particular care not to repeat topics incessantly until they’ve been proverbially beaten into the ground. I try to do this, but sometimes y’all just don’t give me any other choice…

For those of you who didn’t get the memo, I recently moved down here to Florida from the chilly peaks of Northern Michigan, and for the most part, I absolutely love it! The weather’s warm, the scenery is nothing short of gorgeous (…in more aspects than one…), and the people are as friendly as all get-out. We’re coming up on Thanksgiving here shortly and the temperatures continue to break the nineties on a regular basis, so from any normal man’s perspective, it would seem that things are relatively perfect down here…or at least from any pedestrian’s perspective, that is. You see, not only does Florida have its share of oranges, theme parks, and over-priced souvenirs, it also happens to have its share of crazy-ass drivers (along with the several other states’ shares as well)! I don’t know if it’s because 60% of them can’t see over the steering wheel or if it’s just something in the water, but I think it goes without saying that these Floridian drivers down here need a little more assistance behind the wheel than any driver’s ed. class could ever provide!

And of course, that’s where I come in, ready and willing to happily share my superb knowledge with all those who want to hear it…and many who don’t as well! It’s not that I consider myself to be an expert on this stuff or anything, but it’s mostly common sense, anyways…or so one would hope. Nonetheless, I feel that it’s really my civic duty to bring a few things to light because, damn, you guys are gonna kill somebody – seriously…

• First of all, there seems to be a bit of confusion as far as just exactly how these traffic lights are to be understood – RED = STOP, GREEN = GO, AND YELLOW = SLOW DOWN!!! Just because you saw the light when it was green doesn’t automatically give you the right to go through it when you finally get there…
• Merging from one highway onto another is also apparently a problem, especially if you’re in a larger area, as I am, that happens to have many larger roads. Unless you actually see a sign that says “Lane Ends – Merge Left” there’s really no reason to immediately whip into the other lane or stop until traffic lets you in.
• Also irritating the hell out of me are the people who change lanes while they’re making a turn – those dashed-lines are there for a reason, people! You can cut me off once we’re going straight again, but for the time being, just cool it already…
• Everyone seems to be in a hurry these days, unfortunately so much that they’re unknowingly slowly the rest of us down and they don’t even realize it! Understand that when you weave in and out of traffic, everyone behind you has to slow down to accommodate your rude driving efforts. For the most part, we all know where we’re going, so let’s keep the lane changes to a minimum, eh?
• Emergencies and other sporadic problems can come quickly and silently on the road, so the next time that you’re doing ninety down the interstate, consider what might happen if you suddenly came up on an accident over that hill – can you come to a complete stop in a matter of seconds?! Also important to remember – rain makes roads slippery…
• And for God’s sake, hang up your damn cell phone already!!! You’re a lousy enough driver as it is, and even if you’re not, there are just too many other cellular-toting jerks out there to cover the gap, so either pull over or wait until you get home.
• Most importantly of all to remember, though, is that there are other people in those cars out there, just like you, that simply want to get to their destination unscathed. Some may be in a hurry, while others are out to merely take in the view, so don’t be a jerk out on the road. It add maybe an extra five seconds onto your trip to let someone pull out onto the road from a gas station or change lanes to avoid taking the wrong exit, so play nicely out there and remember the golden rule.
• And if that just sounds like way too much work for you, then remember that driving isn’t for everybody. As cities get bigger and travel becomes more expensive, public transportation and even walking are doing their part to help keep the streets manageable, plus you might even meet a new friend or two, to boot! Point blank, if you can’t handle the responsibilities of operating a motor vehicle, whether it be due to disability or old age or even anger management problems, just do us all a favor and find yourself another way to get from A to B, will ya? I just can’t afford to pay any higher insurance premiums than I’m already paying…

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed in all of my recent travels, it’s that I definitely need to seriously think about picking up one of those car air-fresheners. Well that, and the fact that there are just too many cars out there on the roads these days! Now I haven’t been counting, so I can’t exactly give you any specific numbers or anything, but after sitting in six lanes of traffics for hours upon hours, it’s occurred to me that the situation has moved far beyond just having too many idiots on the road – now there are just way too many people in general out there and at the rate we’re going, it might soon be quicker to just walk from one place to another and that’s certainly not a lifestyle change that I’m ready to accept yet!

All in the same, there are really only a few alternatives at this point and sadly enough, not a single one of them seems appealing enough to trade away the fierce and menacing machismo one emits when cranking rap metal out of their 1994 Honda Civic while sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on the freeway for an hour or so each morning. There’s always the company’s suggestion of carpooling, but that always seems to come from those folks who can close their office door to the rest of the department when things start getting stupid! If they had to sit and endure eight straight hours of listening to the order entry girls squealing on about each others’ love lives, interrupted periodically by random games of garbage can basketball and Dave from three cubicles down asking if you want to go get a cup of coffee, chances are they too would rethink the whole concept of spending any more time than one has to with these people!

Public transportation is another great alternative…that is if you enjoy being groped by dirty strangers and the occasional clean-shaven priest every morning. I’m sure it’s equally disturbing for women, too, but any situation that involves cramming dozens of people into a space roughly the size of a phone booth, most of whom haven’t showered in years and would like nothing better than for me to look the other way so they can borrow my wallet and/or my left shoe, all the while trying to ignore the fact that the entire bus smells like urine, and not in that refreshing way – any situation that allows and encourages this type of thing should be banned by the FDA or the FCC or any other combination of letters that the government has taken control over…

And then there’s flying, with all of those dirty birds and insects up there, swerving in and out of their lanes like suicide bombers on their final descent. Oh wait – scratch that, because apparently we haven’t learned how to fly on our own just yet, but I’ll tell you right now that not long after that time does come, it’s going to be just as bad up there as it is down here on the ground – you just wait and see! We’ll have kids flying before they’re old enough to earn their licenses, drunks who barely make it clear from the bar before crashing into the billboard at the corner, and worst of all, people who think it’s alright to talk on their cell phones and fly at the same time…

What were we talking about again?

Oh, that’s right! Now normally in a situation like this, I’d be more than happy to list off half a dozen different wacky solutions that although might not actually help with the problem, would nonetheless be goofy enough to make everyone forget about the actual task at hand for a while, but I spent most of this week’s “brainstorming time” circling the parking lot of the nearby Wal-Mart. Never fear, though, for only an hour and a half into the search, I was able to procure a compact spot in Lot P – a mere two miles from the entrance to the store itself, so I ended up scoring myself a new shower poof and two and a half weeks worth of exercise at the same time – what a deal!

In the end, of course, there’s truly only one way to clear up this road congestion and that and that’s by making everyone walk to and fro, much as our ancestors did long before the freeway and the middle finger were introduced into society. Don’t get me wrong, though – I’ll keep driving as I normally do, but even if just half of you fall for this thing and stay off the roads for a few days, I’ll be that much closer to getting both in and out of Wal-Mart on the same given day! Lot E, here I come…

You’ve seen them out on the road – the soccer moms with their cell phones permanently attached to their skulls, the elderly couples who can’t even remember why they got in the car in the first place, the college guys cruising either to or from school who wouldn’t know a yield sign if it was placed up their asses by one of their frat brothers. Apparently either our Secretary of State is getting a bit lenient on giving out driver’s licenses or Kellogg’s has started tossing them in with the Frosted Flakes…at least that would explain the funny cardboard aftertaste…

There’s a running joke among comedians that says no matter how vast our differences are here in America, we all still belief one thing – that we’re all above-average drivers. Nevertheless, I was out on the road just the other day and I certainly didn’t feel like I was surrounded by above-average drivers…but of course, I myself was driving stupendously, so hopefully at least a tiny bit of my prowess rubbed off on the rest of them! Unfortunately, unless thanks and gratitude are now primarily expressed by flipping me the bird and damn near running me off the road, then I really don’t think that it was quite the influence I was hoping for! Just watch it, Granny – your time will come soon enough!!!

So what is it about driving that can turn a mild-mannered bingo-addict or loving mother into a deranged lunatic by simply putting them behind the wheel? Jane may be an administrative assistant in her mid-twenties at work, spending countless hours filing paperwork and answering the phone for her sexy and financially-stable boss – possibly a bit overworked, but all in the same still happy with her life – yet when that clock on the wall finally hits five o’clock and she digs the keys to that monstrous SUV of hers out in the parking lot, it’s every man for himself as what should be a simple, fifteen minute drive home to suburbia becomes a free-for-all demolition match against anyone who’s stupid enough to be in the same county as her during rush hour! Sound familiar?

Of course, although I generally tend to think the complete opposite of my above statement – that deep down, we’re all idiots when we get behind the wheel – I do think that a lot of us have different reasons for approaching driving with the same reckless abandon which is normally only attributed to the wildest evenings of passion, ALF and Get Smart marathons on Nick at Nite, and the all-you-can-eat buffet. Our various walks of life each present different types of stress, anger, and even acute blindness, all of which give us plenty of excuses for focusing on anything but driving when we’re behind the wheel…

First on our list are the business-types and soccer moms – these amateur racecar drivers have three dozen things on their to-do lists and only a single afternoon to do it in, so naturally the rest of us on the road are nothing more than obstacles on their way to the grocery store. Toss in a cell phone or a few antsy kids and you might as well have put a monkey behind the wheel – at least they might remember to use their turn-signals once in a while! It’s not that they mean to drive forty-seven miles an hour the wrong way down the middle of Main Street during rush hour, but who can really be expected to pay attention to the road when they’ve got dry cleaning to pick up before six?

On the other hand, there are those who simply don’t care – not to stereotype or anything (yeah, right!) but these are typically the ones who’ve just recently gotten their licenses and now have a brand-new, paved kingdom to conquer. Taking to the city streets promptly after seventh period with the bass fully cranked in the family sedan, they’re only out for one specific purpose – to look cool. Driving around for hour upon hour with no particular place to go seems like a fairly innocent after-school activity…until we factor in the street racing, weaving in and out of traffic, and general nuisance stemmed from flipping the bird at every single other driver to cross their paths! News flash – it really detracts from the original anger intended by giving somebody the finger when you wave it around like a kite on a sunny afternoon! Oh yeah, and for those of you who obviously must’ve missed that question in driver’s training – you’re only allowed to flip somebody off when they’re the one who’s done something wrong!

Luckily, though, there are some drivers out there who are impervious to even the most blatant of middle fingers…or traffic signals…or pedestrians! Apparently there are a few benefits left to not being able to see over the dash, even if it does also cancel out any chance of seeing those yellow lines that run up and down the road as well. Now I’m not saying that the elderly should be outlawed from driving altogether, but would it maybe be such a bad idea to just check-up on these folks once in a while? I don’t get to write the rules or anything, but perhaps, uhhhh – vision testing?!?!?! Call me crazy, but I’ve found that being able to actually see the other stuff on the road tends to be an intrical part of the whole experience…

The list goes on and on, but I think I’ve generally made my point – when it comes to driving, we’re all pretty much idiots! Even if I didn’t describe your specific category here today, chances are that I will eventually – maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but one of these days I guarantee you that I’ll be short on new material and come up with the great idea to follow-up this column with even more reasons to gripe about the chaos on our roadways, so drive safely out there…but not too safely – it’s called job security!

For some reason, though, I don’t think I have anything to worry about…

OR
“Whoever invented the Winnebago should be dragged out into the street and shot…”

Have you been outside recently? And when I refer to the outside, I’m thinking specifically of the roads and highways which weave themselves throughout the plains and foothills of this fine nation. If you answered NO, then consider yourself one up on me because I’ve had just about all that I can take…

Living in Northern Michigan, I’m pretty much exposed to tourists in one form or another during any given day, week or month. They come dashing in during the spring and summer months to splendor at the breath-taking views, the majestic scenery and the fudge, and scuttle off to warmer climates as fall and winter approach, slipping past a new group, this time consisting of snowboarders, skiing enthusiasts and general loonies, on the way out. Of course, neither group can stand the other nor their inherited weather patterns, so both choose to commute on a regular basis, sometimes traveling thousands of miles for a single pound of fudge. Honestly, this wouldn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing, except for the fact that they all take to the highways to make their seasonal migration from heaven to hell.

My own personal driving experience is limited to the eastern half of the United States. I’ve never been even as far west as the Rocky Mountains and I can only imagine what driving in Los Angeles is like…isn’t that where Sony did most of their research for Grand Theft Auto III? Anyways, even though I haven’t driven in anywhere near the majority of the states, I have noticed one thing that’s similar among those I have seen – their traffic laws are all nearly identical. That’s right, I’ve yet to cross a state-line and suddenly find myself driving on the wrong side of the road or in some bizarre Reverso-Land where green means STOP, red means GO and nobody still has any idea what to do on yellow! Nevertheless, there must be some state hiding in a corner somewhere which just has the most insane road rules anyone could think of because these people I’m dealing with up here have to be coming from somewhere…

It starts with the fairly simple ones: making right turns on red, staying in the right lane for slower vehicles, and so forth, but the one that I don’t understand – the simplest of them all, as far as I’m concerned – YOU CAN GO WHEN THE LIGHT TURNS GREEN! Apparently many of these folks have the reaction time of a turtle on acid because I can’t count the number of times I’ve sat at a green light for more than twenty seconds while the guy in front decides what he’s going to do. It always happens in the most inconvenient places, too – everyone has a place like this in their hometown, where high and low volume traffic meets and the light timing is ridiculously off – it’ll be green for hours for the cross traffic, then the other side might turn green for roughly fifteen seconds…and typically this would be amble time to get across the street if Captain Decision ahead of you would just go already…

…And then there’s the Winnebago drivers. I don’t mean to rag on the senior citizens, but they’re the ones who keep buying these freightliners and thus they’re opening themselves up for ridicule. Aside from musicians who practically live on the road, nobody needs this much room…ever! What I don’t understand is that pretty much anybody is allowed to drive one of this giants, regardless of the fact that they can’t see without their coke-bottle glasses or hear without their hearing aid turned up full blast – don’t they have tests for these things or something?!?!? It’s bad enough when you encounter an elderly woman driving a Caddy in which she can’t see over the steering wheel – yeah, let’s put ‘em in something even bigger! As far as I’m concerned, each state should require driver’s license retesting yearly when any of your senses start to fade, and there should most definitely be extra tests for anyone driving a vehicle the size of a small house – semi drivers have hours and hours of testing to complete before they’re allowed out on the open road, so why do we simply hand over the keys the second these geezers sign the check?

There are so many things about these types of drivers that irritate me, I just don’t know where to start – the inability to go over 45 mph on a two-lane road, the lack of turn signal use and abrupt stopping, but what gets to me the most is how impossible they make it to pass them. You’ve been following patiently behind them for almost an hour, staring at the flashy letters Road King embossed on the back door. It’s one of those windy, hilly roads in the country, so there’s absolutely no chance of passing and the frequent speed drops around corners are really starting to get annoying! Nevertheless, you see it up in the distance – Passing Lane, Two Miles Ahead. Could it really be true? You dingle with anticipation as the thought of finally passing Grampa fills your head. Finally you reach the moment of truth and the road widens to accommodate an additional lane – you instantly move to the left lane and floor it – this lane isn’t going to last very long, but it will serve its purpose well. Or at least it’s trying to serve its purpose, but as you look into your rearview mirror, expecting to see Gramps enjoying your dust for dinner, all you can see is the empty road behind you…

“What the?” you wonder…where did he go? Nervously looking to your right, you spot the Road King cruising along beside you, now going nearly 70 mph. What is it about four-lane roads that make people temporarily think that they’re allowed to go faster than the speed limit? It’s not a brief freeway, so just what the hell is he doing besides completely crushing your dream of passing him? Soon you see another sign in the distance – Passing Lane Ends, Merge Left – and you instantly know that you’ve lost, again. The old man can’t even see you, so you drop back only seconds before he swings his behemoth back into the left lane. You flip him the bird and blast your horn, but he has absolutely no idea of what’s just happened. He drops his speed back down to 45 mph and you sigh as you realize that the next passing lane isn’t for another 50 miles.

It’s a good thing that the phrase Tourist Season is just a slang term because I’m guessing it would be a very popular activity up here, both for sport and for recreation…

Although we’ve been apart for nearly four years now, she still slips in and out of my dreams from time to time and I know that I’ll never be able to completely forget her. I loved her more than life itself – maybe a little too much in the eyes of some, but I didn’t care – we belonged together! Nearly every free moment I could find was spent with her and frequent were the nights when time would seem to stand still as we bonded as no others could. I was the king of the world as we flew down the highway, my hair blowing in the wind – her enamel sparkling in the sunlight; nothing could stop us.

She was a 1992 Pontiac Firebird – candy-apple red with a 3.1 liter V6 under the hood that could crank out 140 horsepower at 4400 RPMs. It was a common fact that she was known to break 100 mph somewhere between second and third gear, although for legal reasons I can neither confirm nor deny such allegations. I will say, however, that considering I’d pegged out the speedometer on more than one occasion, it’s a damn miracle that I never even got pulled over for speeding…

Looking back on that warm summer night in July, I wish that I could’ve simply been pulled over for speeding or just a broken headlight or something, but I’m not that lucky. I’ve told the story so many times that it seems to come secondhand by now, so here it is now for the three people out there who haven’t heard it yet:

Location: Traverse City, Michigan
Time: Shortly after 8:00pm on a Tuesday night

I had been working over the summer at a local scout camp. It was common place to venture into the city to spend our time off as far away from the actual campers as possible, so that’s exactly what my friends and I were doing. We had just spent the better portion of an hour at Toys ‘R Us and were now heading across town to catch an early movie, but little did we know that ours lives were about to become much more action-packed than Lethal Weapon 4 could ever be…

We were traveling in several cars and planning on meeting up at the theater, although the theater itself was only a couple of miles away so we didn’t really get too separated, anyways. Seeing as the backseat of my car was pretty much non-existent, I only had one single passenger along with me for the ride – a lifeguard by the name of Ryan who I’d known for years. We probably could’ve carried a couple more people – hey, we were used to being cramped by that point, but needless to say, the extra people really cut down your odds while cruising for chicks and we simply couldn’t afford to take those chances! Looking back, I’m kinda glad that we’d put up such a fuss about not carrying anybody else with us because it might’ve been their last car ride for a very long time.

It wasn’t necessarily a very busy night on the road, but we certainly weren’t the only ones on the road, either. It was still fairly light out and the street lamps were just starting to turn on, although one particular individual would claim that it was dark, very dark. Too dark, in fact, to see a shiny red sports car barreling down the highway. You can only guess what happened from here! An older gentleman who had just taken his daughter shopping at the mall pulled out onto the road, oblivious to the fact that I was also driving on that particular section of that particular road at that particular second…

I knew exactly what was going to happen, yet I was completely powerless to do anything about it. I sat paralyzed with terror as I simultaneously heard the squealing of my tires as I tried desperately to slow down and the awaken-the-dead scream of Ryan next to me, followed by the crumpling of metal and fiberglass and then silence. Soon our friends pulled up alongside the accident and checked to make sure everything was ok, then went to make the appropriate phone calls. The driver of the other car approached next and checked everything out, and most importantly apologized and accepted blame for the accident.

This helped to settle my mind a bit about the incident, seeing as I had just lost my dream ride, but within minutes the county sheriff’s department arrived and blew any sense of hope I had managed to find out the window. Although one would have to be legally blind to have missed a car like mine on the road that evening, the deputy on scene was able to convince the other driver that he had not been able to see my vehicle because I did not have my headlights operating at the time. That’s right – the man who had once before uttered the exact phrase, “I’m sorry. It was all my fault…” was now in the clear, primarily because he was both older than me and extremely wealthy. And of course, to wrap things up and pound in the final stake, the deputy was kind enough to issue me a ticket for not having my lights on, as if I hadn’t learned enough of a lesson by simply totaling my pride and joy.

No one was injured, thankfully, with the exception of my insurance record, which I’m still extremely bitter about to this day! I even attempted to plea my case, sighting a full range of witnesses, weather reports and diagrams of the area, but the stubborn asses down at the sheriff’s department wouldn’t budge, and even got quite rude about the whole thing at one point! Thanks to the ignorance of one fellow motorist and the sheer blindness of the law enforcement agencies of that county, I’m forced to pay more for car insurance each month than most people pay for the cars themselves!

So what’s the moral of the story, you ask? Well, duh – how about always drive with your headlights on, for starters? My new car’s lights conveniently dim the display on my radio to the point where I can’t tell that it’s even on, so I tend not to run them all the time, but believe me, the second a single cloud passes in front of the sun or the lighting in my immediate area becomes the least bit questionable, those babies are on in full force, and I’ve got daytime running lights to help cover my ass, too. I do have a couple of other morals I’d like to include here in my conclusion, noting that the bitterness implied is my least violent solution to the situation, so be happy about that…

1. Open Your Fucking Eyes – Yes, this means you – the mid-40s, divorced father trying desperately to bond with his daughter before she casts him out of her life forever, replacing him with a punk-faced teenager bearing more piercings and tattoos than a Courtney Love fan-club meeting. Believe it or not, she’ll appreciate how you subtly don’t scare the shit out of her and damn near kill her by actually looking both ways before you pull out into traffic.
2. Don’t Be the Asshole Cop – There are plenty of people in our society who think our nation’s youth are actually minions of Satan and want them all locked up now; be the bigger man (or woman) and perform your job with the respect that it deserves. The law gives you the duty To Serve and Protect – not To Serve and Protect…Anyone Over the Age of 25 Who Bowls with My Boss and Could Get My Ass Written Up. Take a cue from the departments in larger cities around the country already and do the math – for every motorist who you crack the whip at for minor moving violations, there are plenty of murders, thefts and rape attempts that you could be helping to prevent. To Serve and Protect…
3. The Insurance Company Always Wins… – You’d might as well face the facts: no matter whose fault the accident was or who got the ticket, or even who gave the ticket, the insurance companies will emerge victorious in the end. Yes, it’s true that now I’m faced with the plight of paying outrageous premiums until I’m old and decrepid, so they really won against me, but they also won against each and every one of you – and I’ll bet you didn’t even know that you were playing! The second those companies involved started cutting checks to pay for the costs of that very accident, a few pennies were added onto the renewal rates of everybody’s auto insurance to help keep them in the black. Of course, they’ll never admit to such a scandal, but add up a few thousand accidents every year and then ask the question why your payments never seem to get any lower… All we can do is grin and bear it, make our payments on time, and be the biggest pain in the asses that we can be when we have to deal with them in person!

Man, that was a sweet car, though…

Well, I finally made it home! My head is spinning, my eyes are blurry and I’ve got cramps throughout my entire body, but rather than go to bed like I really should, there’s a little something I need to get off my chest…

I just returned from a short vacation in sunny south Florida, which most of you can understand is just about the complete opposite of my home up in Northern Michigan. When I pulled out of my driveway last Friday afternoon, it was maybe forty degrees out in the sun…a day later the temperature was nearly double that, at eleven o’clock at night!!! Why I even came back is still a mystery to me, but I suppose the more important question would be ‘How did I make it back???’

For those in the audience that might be a bit slower than the rest of us, I’ll spell it out for you: I drove the entire length of the country – from Michigan to Florida – in my very own car. It only takes a quick look at any U.S. map to realize that these states are several inches apart, so saying that it was a pretty long road trip would be the understatement of the century! The exact mileage from Gaylord to Tampa is just short of 1500 miles, which typically translates to approximately twenty hours of driving time. Although I’m not saying that this is how long it should legally take for the trip, most of us understand the entire concept of keeping up with the flow of traffic and Sammy was right – sometimes 55 mph just doesn’t cut it! Besides, let’s also remember that I’m from Michigan, the home of Detroit – The Motor City, so it’s all good…

Under normal conditions, I would’ve been on the beach to enjoy the sunset the following evening, but that certainly wasn’t the case! Now I understand that our national freeway system requires constant attention to keep it operating at optimum levels, but I never knew that it would come down to this. It seems that somebody at the Department of Transportation had made the uncanny decision to place every single orange barrel available along I-75 to enhance my traveling experience…lucky me! In fact, I’m convinced that the DOT actually requisitioned barrels from various contractors around the nation specifically for this purpose because at this point, that’s the only explanation that makes any sense at all for the amounts of road construction that I encountered.

Don’t get me wrong – I’ve experienced more than my fair share of road construction already – I live in Michigan (official motto: Traffic fines are doubled in work zones). There’s so much work being done on our roads as it is that our children are beginning to believe that our state tree is the orange barrel (and I wish I could remember the name of the comedian who deserves credit for that one!). Of course, when you become as accustomed to these fluorescent obstructions as we have, one would think that we’d be used to our speeds dropping thirty or so mph under the speed limit frequently during our travels, but when you’re driving over a thousand miles, every second counts!

I sat in Tennessee for nearly an hour because they were polishing the reflectors on a bridge or something – not exactly a reasonable excuse to stop traffic on the biggest North-South artery in the country, if you ask me! I understand that this work needs to be done, but for God sakes, if you’re going to slow traffic down to a crawl, at least be doing some actual work when I drive by!!! Nothing rubs me the wrong way more than driving by a construction site at two miles per hour and looking up to see eighteen guys in orange vests, all getting paid out of my tax dollars, sitting around drinking coffee and laughing at the drivers having to go so slow. You’re getting paid $25 an hour – most people could only dream of those kinds of wages – so the least you can do is look busy!

The road construction business reminds me a lot of any local fast food restaurant, with the exception that the construction workers are making a hell of a lot more money. By this I mean that they really couldn’t care less about the services that they’re providing; they’re just there to collect a paycheck, which is a load of crap as far as I’m concerned. When was the last time you went out to get a burger and the cashier was actually courteous back to you? That’s what I thought…people have no sense of pride for their work anymore. I know that seasoning curly fries might not be the most prestigious job in the world, but for the time being, it’s yours, so do it right! No, some of us won’t notice, but I’ll tell you that I certainly don’t want to reach into my fries to find your used chewing gum because you hate your job, just as I don’t want to be driving down the highway dodging construction cones and barrels because the workers weren’t courteous enough to keep them in the lane in which the construction is being done…

Yeah, it sucks to work in the rain and snow, moving thousands of pounds of concrete and steel each and every day, but that’s why you’re making the big bucks, remember? If you’re really looking for a break from the grind, I’m sure your favorite fast food joint could always use another burger flipper and from what I hear, those burgers weigh next to nothing! Or if you’re willing to take an even bigger pay cut, just become a humor columnist, where the only things we have to worry about are paper cuts and nasty letters from our readers.

I’m already planning my next road trip so that I can get through the latest batch inspired by this one…