Dear Fellow Drivers

An open letter to all my dear fellow highway drivers;

If, perchance, you are driving in the fast lane on the highway, any fast lane, on any highway, be it four lanes or six or eight, and you happen to glance in your rear view mirror (assuming, of course, you are a cognizant enough driver to do so periodically) and you just happen to notice a long line of cars behind you, all essentially tailgating one another (or worse yet, practicing dangerous traffic stunts to pass on the right), that is a gigantic clue to you, the lead driver.

No, it's this doesn't mean that everyone else is just a bad driver and follows too closely.

No, it doesn't mean that you get to be the self appointed speed controller of America's freeways.

No, it doesn't mean that there is some new game people play on the highway where they all like to drive really fast and only allow fifteen feet of space between themselves and the next car.

No, my dear fellow driver, this means that you should get your slow moving ass out of the fucking way. As in, put on your turn signal and get in the right hand lane, where your slow moving, two mile over the speed limit doing ass belongs.

See, the left hand lane is for people like me - people who know what the speed limit is, and who make a deliberate decision to both break the law and risk their (my) own safety by speeding. I get really pissed off at some middle aged balding man in his Volvo, all by his lonesome, idling along in the fast lane doing approximately 71, setting pace with the car to his right, and NEVER looking in his rear view mirror, except maybe to check the state of his thinning hair or crazy eyebrows. What gives, man?

Your idiocy forces me into something stupid, illegal and dangerous....to take the first available gap, to stomp on the gas, and to pass your dawdling ass on the right. So to all you mini van owners, you Volvo station wagon owners, and the one Merc I passed who was actually doing 69 (dude, you own a Merc!!! what is your problem????), why don't you stay in the slow lane where you belong? If tractor trailers are blowing past you in the right hand lane, you might want to consider the use of the accelerator. Just a suggestion.

Part Two of my driving/trip blog.

On the way up, I stopped in Gaffney in the
middle of the night for gas, and to pee. I hate stopping on trips...because I hate being in the car, and any stop just prolongs my car sitting agony. Anyway, I regard Gaffney as the armpit of South Carolina. Any city whose claim to fame is a gigantic water tower painted to resemble a peach (which, in truth, resembles a gigantic plumber's ass, albeit a fuzzy one) deserves nothing but a severe 'net mocking. And it does actually have a trailer park next to the highway - so I guess I have to take back that earlier post! Back to the peeing thing...my choices for gas and urination are: Citgo (no way), Exxon (double no way) or BP (ok, cool with that). So I pull into the BP, start fueling, lock the dogs into the car, and head inside. I notice as I'm walking back towards the loo that there is this really drop dead gorgeous little girl in the candy girl. Little girl to me means about sixteen. Drop dead gorgeous....in that blond, blue eyed, unspoiled, pristine kind of way. Then I took a second look, and I realize this all American sweetheart is not only dolled up like Paris Hilton, but she also has a knockoff Prada back replete with the little froofroo hairy dog tucked up asleep inside.

First: when did the local Hambrick's start carrying knockoff Prada bags? Second: what is a girl who might have been all of fifteen doing wearing a skirt so short that even I could tell she was wearing pink boy shorts underneath? Third: what the freaking fuck are her parents thinking? Fourth: what the freaking fuck is she thinking? This is GAFFNEY SOUTH CAROLINA and here is a little Paris Hilton Wannabe in the British Petroleum at 11 pm on a Wednesday night. Isn't this a school night? Where are your parents? Please don't tell me that you are out dressed like that (jailbait) on a school night?

I have two things to say: I wish people would learn to exercise some control and periodically turn off the television, and I wish we would all teach little girls that their worth as people wasn't dependent upon how much skin they display, or how pretty they are, or how much they put out.