Nearly Died Again

I was driving to work yesterday in typically rainy weather in the Seattle area. I live a bit North of Seattle, where the median home price has dipped into the high $600K’s, ha ha ha so overvalued! ANYway, on the road and driving, and the people in my area drive pretty well. But I did have a moment where I thought, “This is it… I’m going to die.” Adrenaline is an amazing window-cleaner of your soul; I was crystalline in that moment, every image of my sons and my wife and my friends blinked. And I was terrified for a moment, but also had a flash of peace.

I had poured myself a hot cuppa into my insulated travel stein, which keeps the contents near their entry temperature for about 2 hours. It was worth the $7 I paid for it at Value Village, just had to scrape the lipstick off the side and paint over the “DONNA’S DIVORCE PARTY 2005!” on the side. And off I go…

I was driving down the hill from we I live, and the road winds down and around a number of blind curves. To the right is a guard rail, and beyond it a large ravine, as in 50+-foot steep-roll to the bottom-ravine. The rail is scarred and bent with reminders of speed and inattentiveness. A car coming up the hill crossed the centerline about one wheel’s-width into my lane. I swerved and blurted “HEY! Dude.” Nobody wants to die on the way to work, let alone be on the way to work.
Around the bend, near the bottom, is an on-road that is a cut-over street from a neighborhood that sits beneath this hill. That cut-over helps people back in the corner of those ‘hoods to bypass about a half mile of turns, but only legally allows the person to turn to the Right, or DOWN the hill. The person at the intersection, coming up from the ‘hood, darted out to make a hard left UP the hill. The rain and traction didn’t mix, and I began to brake, hard, while the car behind me approached my rear-bumper at about 40mph. A car coming up the hill thought coming into my lane was a good move (it wasn’t), but I swerved, missed the cars, and horns were a-blaring. Heart’s racin’ now.
Around the next curve is an elementary school, and is not in busing zone, so it’s 95% drop-off. Some people park across the street and walk over from a large lot. This was the drop-off period so there are easily another 300 cars in that spot in about 15min. There’s a light at the cross-walk, and to the East of that light is the school lot’s entrance. So if people are crossing, the light’s red, and the cars can turn into the school with no traffic. As I’m going 20 because of the School Zone, the guy behind me gets impatient and wants to cut ahead… As he starts to, a car pulls out of the parking lot across from the school and the cutter gets so close to my car I can smell the scent of his vape contraption (“Slavic Tramp”). He brakes, falls in line, and we’re back to it. This isn’t even a half-mile from home yet…
I get through the left-turn which leads me eventually to work, and make a jaunt to the right at the next light. As I yield to the car coming across (per the signage), the guy behind me jams his horn like he’s in a jazz trio and starts gesturing as if his anti-spaz meds haven’t kicked in. I’m still rolling, just slower than 40, so I point to the Yield sign with my middle finger, which he takes as a conductor’s cue to hit that F# from the Kia again. I accelerate, swerve around another car that decided to just pull off with no warning, and a teaspoon of molten coffee escaped the travel-mug’s sippin’ hole. With the heat of nearly 3 suns, the drop hung in mid-commute, consumed enough gravity to turn downward, and landed directly on the most-specific spot of a man’s lap that hot liquids can cause the most discomfort. I thought “This is it… I’m going to die.”

I didn’t die. I yelled “WHY THE SHIT, AMERICA!?” and almost rear-ended this guy pulling into the gas station without his blinker on.

I did start draping a kitchen towel across my lap while commuting, however. Can’t be too careful.

January 11, 2018 0

Recap of Crap

Well it’s been a pretty crazy 2 weeks for me. Even as the year comes to an end, the world of business begins it’s own Casual Friday, and insurance companies stare back from the Abyss, my life has sped up a bit. In good ways, mostly. I can’t complain… WAIT, I take that back. I can, and will, because otherwise I’ll start crying and yelling at the same time and then i won’t be able to go back to that Starbucks.

Let’s work backward from today about crap I want to leave behind.

Negative Self-Talk: Before 9am today I had counted about 12 put-downs of myself, for everything from the shape of my body to “not being retarded and forgetting Gift XYZ I need to return!” Well I forgot it anyway because I didn’t take my ADD pill, and had no coffee because I was going in for a doctor’s appointment and wanted a clean blood stream.
30min late! I was 30min late for the doc because, well, I don’t know why. I had apparently transposed the times of appointments and was 30min early yesterday for a different one. So I had less time to talk with this doc. But soon after arriving, I was told they no longer accept my insurance (as of last week), albeit for a noble cause. Doctors sometimes do NOT get paid by insurance companies for any number of reasons, and the cost falls back to the patient, so in this case the doc decided to cut my carrier out as of MONDAY. So… a short, intense appointment nearly followed by $500 worth of blood tests, so already my day’s just going greatly…
No Blood Test; A $500 hit in the next month isn’t totally undoable, but certainly it is NOT a budgeted expense at the moment. I know I have ranted against the insurance system in America before, although it does have its place and can be helpful… But I’m the child in the divorce of Doc and Carrier, so I have to deal with the overflow there.
NO COFFEE OR ADD PILL: By the time I got to work there was already a lot of mental traffic to sift through, from paying for the doctor’s appointment that barely happened, to rescheduling with a recommended doc for Monday, and 2 other phone calls I need to make. All of this without the quieting effect of a low-grade stimulant for which my career and many relationships should be thankful.
Light and Sweet, AH SHIT: I get to work and get a machine-made cuppa, and when I reach into the shared fridge for my cream (real cream, not fat-free Hazelnut Cinnamon Elf Creamer) some dickbag had knocked it over with his bagged lunch, spilling a good 50% of it onto the shelf. So let’s add another 10min blankspot to my day while I clean that up. Pill still hadn’t kicked in, and my coffee was getting cold, so the emotional weight of the moment was pretty palpable.
Ante-up: The Fed is tapering off their dollarly funneling of stimulus into the American economy, which means anything subsidized, backed, hugged, or accepted by the Fed as “good for business” will get less financial backing. Fannie and Freddie’s demands and rates will go up if you wanna buy a house, unless you have great credit and/or a phaaat down-payment. Not great news for this family here trying to save for a new house in the next 12 months.
Figuring The Finances: Soon, businesses with big ticket items, including “Tom’s House of Oversized Novelty Tickets and Certificates,” will have to decide if they will stand firm on their pricing in an effort to not lose a profit percentage on every sale, or if they can drop their prices in an effort to drive volume. This is where the real “Trickle Down” economics lesson could apply: If suppliers charge less and retailers charge less, everybody’s money aligns a little better. Idiots trying to outbid each other for homes that aren’t worth $450K just piss all over those of us waiting in line for a good $350K house.
Check, Please?: I have a couple hundred in outstanding invoices for comedy shows I performed recently. One of the checks is overdue, the other was mis-dated and easily fixed with a group I love working with. So I have calls to make. (Or I could write a blog entry)
Duck Dynasty Dismissal: One of the hill-billies from a TV show called “Duck Dynasty” had some comments that amounted to his not being even a little bit accepting of sexual encounters between men. WHY that concerns him, I don’t know. If he’s thinking about it a lot, well he has some of his own blinds to quack from. He got ousted because his employment with the show depends on the show being watched by people who advertisers will target and pay for commercial time during said show. Ultimately, too many Americans would rather support dummies via viewership than ignore them, drive viewership to the bottom of the holler, and move on down the road.
Holiday Spirits: I got accidentally drunker than a Kennedy on Saturday night, not factoring in the few tugs of Fireball I had in between my 3 cocktails over 5 hours. Took me all day to recover on Sunday, so I am pretty sure, yeah, I need to pace my Fireball consumption. I just cannot recover the was I used to. It wasn’t until I had a bottle of low-cal Gatorade, dinner, and half a beer that I felt somewhat normal. Oh well, lesson learned. STOP MIXING SHOTS WITH COCKTAILS!
Wrap it Up: It is a great fear of mine that my 4 year-old son will make realizations about the existence of Santa Claus and feel disappointment at a young age. I was 5 or 6 when, overcome with excitement, I awoke to sounds at 3am and snuck down the hallway to see my parents “in the Santa way.” It crushed me. I laid in bed and cried. A co-worker told me her 10 year-old son just figured it out earlier this year which I think is on the other end of the spectrum, possibly a disservice to the kid AND the parents. I don’t think parents and family members should bypass getting some credit for their giving and thoughtfulness by letting Santa take all the glory in his absence. Instead, I think we’re doing a decent job of involving our oldest guy in gift-giving to others, as he got to choose a few toys and some clothes for other families in need. He may not get his head or heart around it, but I’d rather have THAT take root in his sweet little heart as a part of Christmas than the idea of giving Santa all the credit after we’ve worked all year to pay for new underwear.

So hey, there ya go. I’m done. Friggin’ tired and gotta hammer away at this work stuff.

Have a Merry Merry Christmas, with family, friends, lovers, and losers. The gift of selflessness is what it seems to be about, no matter how it’s advertised.

December 19, 2013 0

The Time I Met Adam Carolla

A few years ago, about 3+ now, I met Adam Carolla at Laughs Comedy Spot in Kirkland, WA. As a comedian and near deviant in my early 20’s, the work of Adam and Dr. Drew on “LoveLine” was a life-saver. Not only that, Adam’s humor and sensibilities match, and often surpass, my own. When I heard he was coming to my home club I immediately did everything I could to help facilitate the evening. And naturally I didn’t want to act like a total dumbass because Adam’s like the older brother a lot of us wish we had or needed.

Fast-forward to a few things Adam has said about his life and that night in particular.

1) Adam’s wife once told him, paraphrasing, that he has a way of “Bringing out the idiot in people,” I heard this years after the night I’m writing about, but it rang true that night. As part of Adam’s weekend, he was going to jaunt across the parking lot from the club to a bar called the Liquid Lime, wherein he’d sign autographs, take photos, and then try to beat it back to the club a mere 70 yards away. Instead of walking out the front door, or walking all the way from the club to the Lime via the backdoor, I was asked to drive Adam and Mike August, his road manager, over in somebody else’s 1990 Camry. So I did.
Cut to IDIOT TIME.
I gotta get Adam back to the club so we all head out the car which is parked right in the front of the Lime. I’m 8 steps ahead of them so I can unlock the car, open doors, and get back around the comedy club and drop ’em off. First I need to unlock the…
I need to unlock the Camry… Stupid button… What the… Unlock the …
I pushed the button, held the button, etc for about 10 seconds which is an eternity in the world of Adam’s Efficiency Sphere. At which point I hear what equates to “Nevermind, dumbass, I’ll walk.” It was actually “Hey, I’ll just walk.” The Idiot had been brought out. And I don’t think Adam’s being an asshole at this point, it’s just embarrassing and he’s just a guy who would rather not deal with speedbumps, and it ain’t personal.

So I manually unlock the car, alarm goes off, we get in hastily and I hit the button to unlock it and stop the alarm.
The alarm stops, I start it up and we go.

As we enter the back of the club I hand the keys back to the owner of the Camry, a guy who’d been hired as “Security” for the night. Nice enough guy. I say “Your unlock ain’t workin’,” and he goes, “Oh yeah, I heard the alarm! HA HA HA I should’ve told you it was broken.” Yeah. You should’ve.

2) Adam has referred to this particular weekend as a gauntlet, which went from I think 4 shows to a whopping 9 shows over 3 nights. He’s just so damn popular people wanna get close to him, and Laughs was exactly the spot to get close. Adam’s a worker, a do-er, and this was a weekend that put everything else I’ve done to shame. 9 shows, 90min at a go, on-stage alone. Fuggin’ amazing. Since then he’s only done bigger venues and fewer shows for more money, deservedly-so. It’s a great model to follow; if you can get to the same audience with less repetition, you’re not working harder, you’re working smarter. And less. And that’s good. No need to burn out making people laugh. Truly a hard working entertainer and philosoteur.

They say “Never meet your heroes,” because the shine’ll come off the bust. Not true. Adam’s a dude doing what he does, and great at it. I haven’t hit the Bucket List item with Adam, which is getting invited to Jimmy Kimmel’s Football Sundays and catch a Mangria buzz. But until that happens, we’ll always have a fritzed car alarm story.

November 22, 2013 0

To Have Died Young In One’s Prime

I started down a path that would have likely led to some disgruntled comments from people who would know of whom the original post was about. And therefore I retracted that information. But I will say this:

When people lament the loss of a life, “snuffed out too soon, gone before their time,” you have to really look at the circumstances around the death before we assign an appropriate check-out time. When Brittany Murphy died a few years ago after a drug overdose, there were a LOT of people outside the Murphy camp but emotionally invested (for whatever reason) in her life, saying she had died too young. Yes, she was young. But you’re never too young to die from the illnesses you refuse to treat, such as drug addiction or flammable colon gas. And how many people tried how many times in how many different ways to get Brittany healthy? Ultimately it was a psychological drive to drugs, which then killed her, which had gone unrooted and untreated, and perhaps untreatable. It’s sad. And it’s even more sad when it happens to somebody who isn’t famous, who didn’t have any money to handle expenses, and leaves behind a family to pick up the pieces. And by “family” I mean children, not a co-dependent spouse or lecherous entourage lacking any discernible talent.

And at the same time, I noted the following in a moment on-stage a few years ago, while pondering the deaths of young people.

Young men between the ages of 15 and 27 do dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb and stupid stuff more than anybody else, based solely on testosterone, lack of forethought, and a throbbing life-boner. Driving drunk, driving fast, mohawks, energy drinks, fraternity drinking, borderline date rapes, parking lot fights, etc. Therefore they should all be defaulted into Organ Donor status. Perfectly healthy crop of lungs and hearts and kidneys can be harvested for the poor folks waiting for one of these dipshits to roll his Jeep or mis-judge the cross-wind of a bridge jump. I still can’t believe I’m alive considering the [OMITTED FOR LEGAL CONSIDERATION AND BECAUSE MY KIDS MAY READ THIS ONE DAY] for an entire month.
The loss of realized potential is what is most crushing. The time to share Life with that person ends, BAM, done. Nothing more. Grief sets in and confuses and crushes and drives people to sadness and despair and rear-window “In Memory Of” decals. When that life ends there’s nothing more that can be capitalized upon; no professions, no vacations, no kids or grandkids or victories on competitive cupcake bake-offs.
The person to which I thought of and referred to, originally, died before he hit 30 years old. Model-like good looks, dashed in a tragic accident. He’ll never get older than 28. He’ll never wrinkle, or gray, or sag. He’ll never wake to the cries of a screaming child 3 times a night and suffer a day of fatherhood and work and tiring of the Grind. Because he drove too fast for the conditions, and an accident happened. Really very sad, for the rest of us who are going through all of that. Nobody will ever know what he looked like as a fat, balding, bitter desk jockey. Lucky bastard.

So before we wail and groan when a life goes too soon, please look at the circumstances of it for a Reality Check. At what age is somebody NOT “too young” to die? I am hoping to die much like my great-grandfather, in his sleep at the age of 91, shot by a jealous lover.

September 27, 2013 0

I Will Maim Teenagers Drinking At Playgrounds

To The F*ckstain Who Smashed Beer Bottles at the Kid’s Playground:

You must be a teenager or somebody else with a very minimal view of the world. You cannot possibly be a good human being at this point in your life, but it will get better if you decide it will. Until then, you are the reason there are cameras popping up at every street corner and playground. Big Brother ain’t watching, YOUR BROTHER is watching. And I’m pissed.

I did plenty of dumb stuff when I was young (as recently as last week in fact). Fine. Happy? Good. But the fact that you drained a couple Coors Lights, in BOTTLES I might add, which means you have no idea how to properly drain the Silver Bullets, is only the beginning of your idiocy. These are probably your step-dad’s garage beers, or something left behind from a July 4th BBQ your mom threw up after. This isn’t an adult’s beer, a discerning man’s beer of choice. Then, as if drinking the last of it, probably with a blossoming young lady who thinks you “bad” or “dangerous” because she doesn’t yet understand Life, as if the last sip was a 3-yard dive for a winning touchdown… you spike the bottle into the cement, shattering it. Shards left behind in the high-traffic area of an elementary school playground.

And you blue-ball it all the way home, smug and buzzed on watery beer and Axe bodyspray. We’re watching. We’re carrying stun-guns.
And dustpans.
Decide right now which you’d rather have.

July 22, 2013 0

Donut Do Not

I drive by a TopPot every day on the way to work. Have never once gone in there. The half-donut I had after a recent trip was more of a stress munch, and was the only donut I’ve had for a long time (6+ weeks). And I can smell the fried dough every day I drive by, but I never ever stop.

But today I decided I’m just gonna go get one and get it over with and just ENJOY A TREAT. Worked hard this week in the gym, did a 40min MRT blowout this morning, feeling good. Donut ready.

Nothing fancy, just a maple old-fashioned or something like that.

As I park way behind in the garage and have to walk a long way to the door I see a sign that says

JUNE 7, NATIONAL DONUT DAY, FREE DONUTS, ORDER A DOZEN!!!

I’m thinking “Holy crap, it’s meant to be! I finally give in a little and it’s free donut day! Just ONE donut and I’ve been repaid for my patience!“

So I head on in, and I don’t see a large case like usual, but no bigs, I see some folks huddled around the case, and there’s a group from Northwest Harvest off to the side, taking donations. Good call, because if folks aren’t paying for donuts, they have money to drop in those buckets!

So then I pull my wallet out, gonna get a coffee, too, great coffee at the Top Pot, I’m like 3rd person in line, and I peek around the gal ahead of me to see the case full of….

empty platters. 6 empty platters. Some without crumbs. Just bare and exhausted.

Oh, wait, no… there were 2 platters holding the following items.

2 plain cake donuts, 3 plain cinnamon cake donuts, 2 chocolate bars (1 of which the icing has slid halfway off), 1.5 pieces of walnut bread and a blueberry muffin.

This is God’s donut prank on me. Well played.

So I balk and turn to leave, still have my wallet out. Northwest Harvest Greenbean Patrol stops me with the “HAVE YOU HEARD OF NORTHWEST HARVEST” and I have because I used to drop in and volunteer in college, and I drop a dollar and some change in a bucket while the lady says “You can give $10 and provide this much food…” pointing to a sign. Her partner there is STARING AT THE MONEY IN THE CLIP OF MY WALLET and gives me a look like “Ummm… what’s that?” And I leave, having just wasted time. No donut, just accusatory stares.

So I go to the store because now it’s about getting a donut in my hole based solely on the notion that I will not be denied. Some guy is standing in front of the donut case and cannot figure out how to get the box together for the dozen-ish he’s gonna bring to his co-workers, I presume. I say “pardon me” and he doesn’t even move, then a little louder with, “Excuse me,” and again, nothing, so I just open a door while he’s standing there and say “again, pardon me, sir” very nicely and he barely moves. I grab a chocolate old fashioned, toss it in the bag, and barely have the door open so that I can let it close while he’s trying to reach in it. I’m not his donut doorman, that guy and his coworkers can kiss my fritter. I’m pretty much done with people at this point of the morning.

Get to work, settle in with some coffee, and take a bite of the donut.

Old. Stale. No flavor. Just old and gross. At least a day old.

Threw it away after 2 bites.

Before this weekend is out, I will have a donut in my hole.

June 7, 2013 1

Everybody’s The Smartest Dumbass, Dumbass

The internet is not just a giant suckhole of your time, sanity, and sanctity, it’s also where dipshits, tardloads, and the occasional thick-skulled seat-sniffer volleys a shot at your intelligence from their dandruff and sebum-grouted keyboard. Everybody’s a tough guy until they get punched in the mouth. That’s why they never show their mouth. You can’t punch an internet tough-guy (a.k.a. “keyboard warrior”) in the mouth because theirs is full of a brain-frying energy drink and microwaved snacks.

A few months ago there was a “highlight” circulating of a high-school football scrimmage, wherein a running back takes a pitch-out around right-end and heads up-field. He makes a “spectacular flip” over a defender and heads for the end-zone. I saw it and thought right away how the back made a full spin in the backfield (takes eyes off defense), the defense seemed really soft, the blocker falls down, and the safety from the middle of the field doesn’t even try to tackle the kid. It looked staged.

Why stage it? Hell if I know. But it looked staged to me. And I said as much in the comments. And wow, did the dipshits come out of the basement jerk-closets!

My name, GLRules is there. My comment at the top. I had 12 thumbs-downers, so a dozen people thought I was a complete asspipe. Fine.
Then an anonymous user misspells “obviously” while making an assumption about my football-playing past. He’s wrong. I did play football, I study it, I love it.

Then “ManU” chimes in stating that it’s a scrimmage so OF COURSE nobody’s trying… except the kid risking knee ligaments to flip over somebody, while the scrimmage just HAPPENED TO BE CAPTURED ON VIDEO BY SOMEBODY?! Which most coaches would rather you NOT F*CKING DO. Plus, ManU is the moniker of a popular British Soccer squad, so their knowledge of full-out sporting is suspect.

Isn’t my primary comment my way of tossing my TapouT hat into the “Ring of Tards”? Sure. I know it may get comments and those comments may be from idiots. But when you call it out, and it’s faked, and people defend it, and 2 weeks later it’s A COMMERCIAL FOR A WIRELESS CARRIER… then yeah… you get to walk out of the tard ring knowing that you weren’t crapping on some kid’s dream of being a getting a full-ride Parkour scholarship. So what do you do in that case?

Ya just keep throwing.

Never let dipshits get the better of ya.

January 28, 2013 0

Alone In Public

We spent some time in a small berg in Eastern Washington the other day, picking the day that was both the hottest day of the year AND the most-crowded day of the year in that berg. The effect 11 degrees Fahrenheit can have on one’s ability to throttle age or odor-related epithets in a crowd is REAL, folks. And having a very curious toddler weaving across foot traffic into ANOTHER store selling kettle corn… WHO NEEDS THIS MUCH KETTLE CORN… compounds one’s calm demeanor, even when your dopamine levels should be up.

I don’t know if I have ever had a real panic attack. I feel like I’ve teetered on the edge a few times, and frankly I am over-tired of people who act like my need to excuse myself from cacophonous areas and tightly-packed rooms is a weakness. I am grown up. I am an adult. There are some times I can totally tough it out. And other times I have nothing to prove to a small store full of strangers, none of us making eye contact, while a 3 year-old yanks porcelain figures off the “DO NOT TOUCH EVEN THOUGH THIS IS AT TODDLER LEVEL” display. And as my head filled with white noise and people seemed to gear-down from “sloooow” to “barely moving,” I had to get out. The medical term is “get the fuck out right now.”

The feeling of being stuck is bad enough for me to deal with. There’s something about being penned-in that bothers me greatly, even though I can see there’s NOTHING dangerous happening. I think more it’s the fact that I look at people’s faces and they seem to be totally unaffected by the mass they have created. Same thing in traffic. I know, I’m part of the mass, but why isn’t anybody moving? Why aren’t we moving a little more quickly, even a half-step more? Add to that a kid who is eye-to-butt with a lot of people and is touching things he’s not supposed to only because we’ve made a horrible choice to come into the Crystal Solitude retail outlet, and how about I just scream and run out with my kid over my shoulder like the dam burst? Because that seems more rational than the 8 minute route we’re taking to the exit.

My real issue with this is that my need to loosen up my bounds is looked upon like some personality disorder. For some reason, be it that I don’t like crowds that cannot move properly, or I am an Aquarius and can only take some much of being surrounded, or because I’m somewhat neurotic about keeping my kid from side-arming a $395 ceramic Halloween Gnome across the room, my “must have space” need gets the stink eye from people. And with our society slowing down thanks to technology (I am advocating a roped-off area for all publicly-standing texters) it’s only going to get worse. But not for me.

I am making a pledge right now that I will be more vocal about people slowing things down, walking the wrong way, leaving their grocery carts unattended, staring at their phones, being rude, and in general, acting like they are alone in public. Because that sounds lovely, and if I can’t have it, everybody won’t.

August 23, 2012 0

Driving Home Your Message

Drivers are more distracted than ever. It’s the phones. The mobile phone is present in most of our cars. If you’re reading this you likely have a mobile device. These aren’t just phones any more. That little case is 98% entertainment/communication/organization device, and 2% phone. And because enough people focus too much attention on their phones and not on their driving, traffic fatalities are up over the past few years. I say “enough” people because I’ve seen it too often to know we have “enough,” which, if you need it quantified, is at least 5% of the drivers on the roads. A recent study showed 20% OF PEOPLE REGULARLY WRITE AND SEND TEXT MESSAGES WHILE DRIVING.

I commute about 35 miles, round-trip, in some heavy traffic on a daily basis. I rarely go more than 50 yards without seeing the tell-tale signs of a distracted driver. Where most folks are packed in close to the cars around them, there’s maybe a 5-10 car-length opening in front of a car. As I pass it I see the driver, usually a young woman (sorry, could be an old woman, too) with her eyes cast downward, away from the road for 2-5 seconds. That’s a lot on the highway. Guys do it, too. Glancing down even if their phone is up near their early-20’s face. Then they glance up, and right back down to their lap or thereabouts. Something must be verrry important.

Imagine you’re driving a reasonable 35mph. Close your eyes and count “1-Mississippi, 2-Mississippi.” Open them for 1 second, close them again and count. That’s about what I’ve seen people doing while behind the wheel of a car. Driving and not causing an accident and catching on fire and not making it to work for bagel day apparently isn’t enough motivation. Whatever is happening on that phone – UFO Landing? Bigfoot visiting St. Jude’s? STREAMING VIDEO OF THEIR CHILD’S BIRTH ON A SPACESTATION, right? – has taken precedent over the safety of everybody else on the roads, including their own. And we don’t have the right to endanger other people. And the age ranges of the perpetrators vary wildly , so we’re all to blame.

I’ve also seen this on surface streets. Last year I was pushing a stroller fully-loaded with a ready-to-run toddler up to a crosswalk. No light or stop sign for cross traffic, the pedestrian just grabs a flag to help identify themselves. The far lane, crossing right-to-left, stopped. As I looked at the curb lane closest to me, a car about 50 feet away going about 30mph was driven by a woman who’s face was aimed lap-ward, about 6 cars following her. She glanced up over the top of her sunglasses then right back to her lap. Never slowed down. As she passed I shouted “HEY” through her open passenger window and got her attention. Abruptly. Of course she snapped-to and gave me a dirty look and hand-wave from her car. God-forbid I distract this driver! The car behind her had slowed to a stop, and that driver was shaking her head. Everybody’s responsible for their own actions, and I’m not going to endanger myself or my family to prove a point. Still, that chick’s a shithead.

According to one study, drivers who are texting are 4 times slower to brake than drivers who are at the very least “impaired” by alcohol, if not legally drunk. This infographic has more interesting facts about the dangers of Texting & Driving. It also states that drivers are six times more likely to get in an accident (cause one, basically) when dialing a number.

So, make text-related traffic stops, tickets, and accidents as harshly punishable as DUIs, or even moreso. But firstly, do the right thing and put your phone down on the road, listen to podcasts, and zone out the way you used to. Eventually our cars will block all communications unless the car is turned off and sittin under an overpass. As long as a few keep doing this and aren’t openly chastised and heavily penalized (like a person can own a cell phone but no carrier can give them a plan for less than $500/month), it’ll keep happening. Be careful out there.

July 26, 2012 0

Tag: Idiots