Two Things I Enjoy in My Car: Self-righteousness and Public Radio

The highways are crowded with people who drive as if their sole purpose in getting behind the wheel is to avenge every wrong done them by man, beast or fate.
-Hunter S. Thompson

Sometimes, when I'm driving, I turn into an angry and bitter little troll. It's as if I said, "Screw it... let the d@#$ Billy Goats do whatever they want," crawled out from under the bridge and financed a Buick.

Someone will roll through a stop sign and someone else will turn without using their blinker and I'll shout, "Where are all of you coming from? Is there a moron convention in town?" Then I'll turn up the NPR program about cooking that I'm listening to. "You'd never do that, would you Lynne Rossetto Kasper? Of course you wouldn't."

The blinker thing really bothers me. I think that it gets to me because I am automatic with the blinker. I blink in parking lots. I blink in my parents driveway. I'm very consistent when it comes to blinking. The people around me are rarely confused about where I'm going. That's why, when I see someone turn off the highway without blinking, the bitter little troll in me is compelled to call them a "friggin' stupid idiot face."

I turn up the science program. Give me strength, Ira Flatow.

I was driving to my folks place last Saturday for a Memorial Day weekend fishing trip. A young lady in a sporty little silver Saturn passed two cars behind me and then tailgated me for a short time. As she passed me, I shook my hairy troll fist at her and pointed out that she was crazy. I yelled, "You're going to get a friggin' ticket, idiot face!" But no one heard it. I turned up the radio. These kinds never get tickets, I thought to myself.

I continued driving, and just as I was coming into McGregor, I could see the lights of a state trooper's squad car ahead of me on the shoulder. In front of the trooper's car, there was parked a sporty little silver Saturn. The young woman sat looking down at the steering wheel as the officer walked toward her open window. I shook my head. "I tried to tell you," I said aloud to no one. Then a very satisfied troll laugh bubbled out of me.

I pride myself on my ability to empathize... but I can't speak for the troll.

I turn up the radio. Michele Norris knows I was right.