It would seem that there is a dramatic abundance of beautiful women wandering the planet these days. And it would seem that women -- girls -- are looking older and more beautiful than their ages would indicate. I write today from a location in the world where there seems to be a disproportionate number of extremely gorgeous women, and a thought struck me that I wish to share.
What goes through the mind of a woman as she sees herself cresting that peak in life where the skin is not as elastic as it used to be? When freckles begin that long, slow morph into age spots? When she no longer turns the heads of men of all ages? Is it more difficult for a woman to face that time when she had spent her life to that point as a strikingly beautiful woman? Is it any easier if she had been more plain? Or does the plain jane suffer worse as she has never had the adoration of the physically endowed, and now she slips into agedness just like everyone else so that what she DID have now begins to elude her as well? Is it better to have had and lost than to have never had at all, or the other way around?
As a man who was never physically attractive to the general population (and if I was, I wish somebody would have let me in on that secret!), I slide into middle age with ambivalence. I was never dashing and handsome, so I don't see those ebbing away. I was never the star athlete -- or any kind of athlete, for that matter -- so I have no glory days as such to look back upon, nor the demise of same to mourn. I generally regret that I never had those things, and I don't think the level of regret will increase with age.
I think it must be different for women, at least in American society, where so much emphasis is placed on beauty and appearance, if only in the most practical sense. When the days of primping and polishing are over, when no amount of make-up seems to make a difference, what does she do with her time? But more deeply, what did time do with her? Does she look in the mirror and think back to the days when her skin was smooth and tight, when her lips had no wrinkles at the edges, when wrinkles formed at the outer edges of her eyes only when she smiled?
Or is this something we will all do at some point in and after middle age, whether we had "it" or not?
I don't want to get old.
dassall
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Sunday, July 24, 2005
A week in Puerto Rico (so far...)
Well, it hasn't been QUITE a week, yet. I got here Tuesday night. But I have time to write tonight, so let's just call it a week and get it over with.
People in Puerto Rico (I won't say Puerto Ricans because they're not the only ones here...it could be anybody), no matter how friendly or law-abiding they might be at any other time of the day, are absolutely AWFUL drivers. They're even worse than Florida drivers! Unless...these are the people who couldn't get licenses in Florida...hmmmm. Example: I was sitting in the left lane at a red light. When the light changed, the person in the car to my right shot out ahead of me and made a left turn across my lane, and I was going straight! This was NOT an isolated incident!
The women here are among the most beautiful I have ever seen. Almost too beautiful. Teenage girls should NOT look that good!
When you must get half naked in order to feel comfortable in the heat outside, and even that doesn't work, why then must hotels and other public establishments blast the AC so freakin' cold that, in turn, you freeze? I mean embarrassing nippage is one thing, but frostbitten nipples in a tropical paradise is quite another!
Breakfast at McDonalds here is nothing like on the US mainland. Here your combo choices are limited to bagel meals or "McCriollo" meals, with differing meats fleshing out (nyuk! nyuk!) the menu. I got the "bagel salchiche," or the sausage bagel, which I don't even think is on the menu at a mainland McDonalds! The other choices are ham and bacon. The same meat choices are available on the McCriollo, which my best guess at pronouncing is "mik-cree-YO-yo," but that does little to help my understanding what the hell it is!
How dangerous -- or not -- are iguanas? They're all over the place! They are scary looking little fuckers, and some of them are NOT so little! Oh, they look cute, as it were, in someone's terrarium or in their arms when they hold one, but these guys (on a golf course (oh, stop! I wasn't playing golf! I'm working, and yes, it IS tough. You try spending a week in "paradise" only working!)) looked hungry...and they looked as though they could make a meal out of my foot!
In all, for all its beauty, tropical climate and beautiful, kind people, I think Puerto Rico is a hostile place for plant life, animal life and, yes, if you're caught unprepared in the wrong place, even human life!
dassall
People in Puerto Rico (I won't say Puerto Ricans because they're not the only ones here...it could be anybody), no matter how friendly or law-abiding they might be at any other time of the day, are absolutely AWFUL drivers. They're even worse than Florida drivers! Unless...these are the people who couldn't get licenses in Florida...hmmmm. Example: I was sitting in the left lane at a red light. When the light changed, the person in the car to my right shot out ahead of me and made a left turn across my lane, and I was going straight! This was NOT an isolated incident!
The women here are among the most beautiful I have ever seen. Almost too beautiful. Teenage girls should NOT look that good!
When you must get half naked in order to feel comfortable in the heat outside, and even that doesn't work, why then must hotels and other public establishments blast the AC so freakin' cold that, in turn, you freeze? I mean embarrassing nippage is one thing, but frostbitten nipples in a tropical paradise is quite another!
Breakfast at McDonalds here is nothing like on the US mainland. Here your combo choices are limited to bagel meals or "McCriollo" meals, with differing meats fleshing out (nyuk! nyuk!) the menu. I got the "bagel salchiche," or the sausage bagel, which I don't even think is on the menu at a mainland McDonalds! The other choices are ham and bacon. The same meat choices are available on the McCriollo, which my best guess at pronouncing is "mik-cree-YO-yo," but that does little to help my understanding what the hell it is!
How dangerous -- or not -- are iguanas? They're all over the place! They are scary looking little fuckers, and some of them are NOT so little! Oh, they look cute, as it were, in someone's terrarium or in their arms when they hold one, but these guys (on a golf course (oh, stop! I wasn't playing golf! I'm working, and yes, it IS tough. You try spending a week in "paradise" only working!)) looked hungry...and they looked as though they could make a meal out of my foot!
In all, for all its beauty, tropical climate and beautiful, kind people, I think Puerto Rico is a hostile place for plant life, animal life and, yes, if you're caught unprepared in the wrong place, even human life!
dassall
Sunday, July 17, 2005
On "Mid-Life Crisis"
When I was a kid I heard the term "mid-life crisis." I think it was in a TV sitcom, and the sufferer of said syndrome had just purchased a zippy, red sports car, much to his wife's disdain and ridicule. I saw this and thought, "When someone has a 'mid-life crisis', they want to buy a zippy, red sports car." I never fully understood the term or its implications.
Flash forward 25 years. Now I'm 40. Now I get it. "Mid-life crisis." It has nothing to do with a sports car. It has everything to do with what the sports car represents. "Mid-life crisis" is when you reach that point in your life where you have lived enough life to look back upon and assess things. From that vantage point you can see all of the things you've seen and done and accomplished...and all those you have not. When the list of things you want to do and have yet to get to looms larger than the list of things you've done, you start to feel restless, like maybe time will run out.
When the young stud in your office, who's really just starting his life, comes in with stories of his most recent weekend's amorous conquest(s!), you think, no matter how loving or kind or beautiful your own wife is, you think of all the women over the years who caught your eye but you didn't approach. And you kick yourself.
When the middle-management schlub announces his resignation because his little business venture on the side is finally taking off and he's going to be rich, you think of all the great ideas you had way back when that you just never had time to pursue. And you kick yourself.
When you sit at a red light in your minivan, and the young kid in the lane next to you revs the engine on his little Honda or Mitsubishi or Subaru ghetto sled, you let him pop the clutch and leave you in his exhaust cloud. But you think back to the days when you were his age, and to the big block muscle car you had -- it was old even then -- that would have humbled the little runt and had him spitting out the chunks of rubber you would have kicked in his face. IF you hadn't had to get rid of it for a more "sensible" car as your wedding day approached. And then you mash the pedal to the floor just to see what that minivan can do. You're not impressed. But it's enough that your coffee cup tumbles out of the cup holder and anoints the floor of your van.
At the fast-food restaurant you see that cute little number talking to her friends and you're of the mind that, if you were single, you'd pop on over there and turn on that old charm and smile, and you'd have a shot. But then you realize that she and her friends have noticed you staring, and they start to giggle to each other. And you hear, just above a whisper, perhaps on purpose, the words, "bald," "old," and "fart," And you realize that, though you may still have it, they don't want it. And then they get up, and each is sporting a jacket that reads "Class of '07," and this ain't a college town!
And that's when you feel it. You're no longer young. You can no longer move like the wind with the reflexes of a cat. You're not yet so old that all you can do is pass wind with the stealth of a cat...hacking up a hairball. No, you're right in the middle, that transitional phase where you can feel the youth trickling from your muscles and joints, where body parts ache from just sitting that never ached before, in a preview of what's to come, where you realize that you look a great deal like your father looked in those photos of him in HIS 40s, when you were so young that you thought HE was old. And you want none of this. You want it to stop before it goes too far. But you know it will not stop.
No matter how much you've done, it's all the things you didn't do. It's all the things you still want to do but know you probably won't get to, or your body can't handle any more.
Welcome to your mid-life crisis. Time to buy that zippy, red sports car and hunt down that kid in the ghetto sled.
Flash forward 25 years. Now I'm 40. Now I get it. "Mid-life crisis." It has nothing to do with a sports car. It has everything to do with what the sports car represents. "Mid-life crisis" is when you reach that point in your life where you have lived enough life to look back upon and assess things. From that vantage point you can see all of the things you've seen and done and accomplished...and all those you have not. When the list of things you want to do and have yet to get to looms larger than the list of things you've done, you start to feel restless, like maybe time will run out.
When the young stud in your office, who's really just starting his life, comes in with stories of his most recent weekend's amorous conquest(s!), you think, no matter how loving or kind or beautiful your own wife is, you think of all the women over the years who caught your eye but you didn't approach. And you kick yourself.
When the middle-management schlub announces his resignation because his little business venture on the side is finally taking off and he's going to be rich, you think of all the great ideas you had way back when that you just never had time to pursue. And you kick yourself.
When you sit at a red light in your minivan, and the young kid in the lane next to you revs the engine on his little Honda or Mitsubishi or Subaru ghetto sled, you let him pop the clutch and leave you in his exhaust cloud. But you think back to the days when you were his age, and to the big block muscle car you had -- it was old even then -- that would have humbled the little runt and had him spitting out the chunks of rubber you would have kicked in his face. IF you hadn't had to get rid of it for a more "sensible" car as your wedding day approached. And then you mash the pedal to the floor just to see what that minivan can do. You're not impressed. But it's enough that your coffee cup tumbles out of the cup holder and anoints the floor of your van.
At the fast-food restaurant you see that cute little number talking to her friends and you're of the mind that, if you were single, you'd pop on over there and turn on that old charm and smile, and you'd have a shot. But then you realize that she and her friends have noticed you staring, and they start to giggle to each other. And you hear, just above a whisper, perhaps on purpose, the words, "bald," "old," and "fart," And you realize that, though you may still have it, they don't want it. And then they get up, and each is sporting a jacket that reads "Class of '07," and this ain't a college town!
And that's when you feel it. You're no longer young. You can no longer move like the wind with the reflexes of a cat. You're not yet so old that all you can do is pass wind with the stealth of a cat...hacking up a hairball. No, you're right in the middle, that transitional phase where you can feel the youth trickling from your muscles and joints, where body parts ache from just sitting that never ached before, in a preview of what's to come, where you realize that you look a great deal like your father looked in those photos of him in HIS 40s, when you were so young that you thought HE was old. And you want none of this. You want it to stop before it goes too far. But you know it will not stop.
No matter how much you've done, it's all the things you didn't do. It's all the things you still want to do but know you probably won't get to, or your body can't handle any more.
Welcome to your mid-life crisis. Time to buy that zippy, red sports car and hunt down that kid in the ghetto sled.
A Little More About Me
(Moved here from "The Shootist" - Thursday July 14, 2005)
Well, I'm really not as arrogant as I came off in the prior post. I really am better than everybody else.
JUST KIDDING!
So... about me... This will probably be the most difficult writing assignment I'll ever, er ...assign... myself.
I don't think I would be classified as a typical guy. I'm not gay, nor am I effeminate, but I do have some feminine traits. Take my breasts, for instance.
OKAY! KIDDING AGAIN!
But seriously, I'm known to cry at the end of chick flicks. Oh, yeah... I watch chick flicks with my wife, when she's in a movie mood. I cry in the middle of "It's A Wonderful Life" (the best movie ever made) when Mr. Gower, who's just received notice that his son has died, flies into a rage because little George Bailey hasn't delivered a prescription, and then starts slapping the shit out of him until George tells him that he didn't make the delivery because he noticed that Mr. Gower had put the wrong - read: DEADLY - pills in a customer's prescription...because I know the implications of this event later in the movie...because I've seen it a billion times. I bawled my eyes out at the end of "Titanic" (yeah, I know "Titanic"... *GROAN!*). No, I mean I seriously sobbed, right there in the theater while the credits rolled and the other, much less sappy moviegoers filed out. I even cried during that silly little song in the middle of "Toy Story 2," the one where Woody's girlfriend laments about how she was a little girl's forgotten toy.
And in a confrontation, like at work when shit's just wrong and I feel I MUST speak out, or when I get really angry at my wife, I get a lump in my throat when I try to speak. But I'm a guy, so afterward I can punch something (not my wife!) and think I feel better.
I like music, mostly '70s and '80s rock, but I do like a lot of the swing era, or Big Band music. I like classical, though I'm not a connoisseur and couldn't discern between Beethoven's Third Symphony and Mozart's Symphony No. 16 in C major. Okay, I had to look that up in my collection to even remember he HAD a No. 16!
I'm not much into art. I don't care much for paintings, but, for some reason, I really dig sculpture. I mean the "real" sculpture, the classics from the Renaissance and whatnot, the ones that really look like people, like Michelangelo's "David," ...or was that Da Vinci's? ...or the unbelievably huge collection at the Louvre in Paris.
I love to travel. It's the reason I went for the job I now have. Of course, with the job I've just about had all the travel they can stuff down my throat. People always say to me, "You have a great job! You get to see so much of the world!" I'm a bit of a cynic, so I can't refrain from replying something to the effect of, "Yeah, I see lots of airports and hotels." But if it weren't for the job, I wouldn't have been able to take my wife to Paris in '02 (piggybacked with work) or my wife and my father to Italy in '04 (strictly vacation, air travel paid for with frequent-flyer miles), or a niece and nephew to Ireland and England just this past June (work again, ff miles again).
I love to drive. I guess that falls in with the love for travel. I love road trips, though I seldom get to do those anymore. Driving for work travel is normally out of the question as I'm often off to New England or DC or NYC, or in The South, though I can never seem to be sent there in the winter, only in August when you see people crowded around the tailpipes of idling buses to take advantage of the cool breeze coming out of them! But I digress. I miss road trips.
As to what my job is, I'll only say for now that I'm out on the fringes of real video production work. None of what I do is ever seen on TV anywhere, but it is seen by hundreds of people...once. Then I'm on to the next project. Through work and through associates from work, I have had the opportunity to meet a few famous - or once famous - celebrities: Les Paul, Tommy Smothers, Penn & Teller, Colin Powell... that's about it. Oh, and the Osmonds, minus Donny and Marie.
I like to make people laugh and try to do that all the time (refer to the breasts remark above...SERIOUS attempt there!). I even get to exercise that in my work about 35% of the time.
What I hate to do is bore people, like I'm doing to you, now. You have other blogs to read, so I'll end your agony (you know, you coulda just stopped reading and moved on!). If you care, you can learn more about me as I go along. Just don't forget to bookmark me before you zap my page into nothing. Thanks for reading this far.
dassall
Well, I'm really not as arrogant as I came off in the prior post. I really am better than everybody else.
JUST KIDDING!
So... about me... This will probably be the most difficult writing assignment I'll ever, er ...assign... myself.
I don't think I would be classified as a typical guy. I'm not gay, nor am I effeminate, but I do have some feminine traits. Take my breasts, for instance.
OKAY! KIDDING AGAIN!
But seriously, I'm known to cry at the end of chick flicks. Oh, yeah... I watch chick flicks with my wife, when she's in a movie mood. I cry in the middle of "It's A Wonderful Life" (the best movie ever made) when Mr. Gower, who's just received notice that his son has died, flies into a rage because little George Bailey hasn't delivered a prescription, and then starts slapping the shit out of him until George tells him that he didn't make the delivery because he noticed that Mr. Gower had put the wrong - read: DEADLY - pills in a customer's prescription...because I know the implications of this event later in the movie...because I've seen it a billion times. I bawled my eyes out at the end of "Titanic" (yeah, I know "Titanic"... *GROAN!*). No, I mean I seriously sobbed, right there in the theater while the credits rolled and the other, much less sappy moviegoers filed out. I even cried during that silly little song in the middle of "Toy Story 2," the one where Woody's girlfriend laments about how she was a little girl's forgotten toy.
And in a confrontation, like at work when shit's just wrong and I feel I MUST speak out, or when I get really angry at my wife, I get a lump in my throat when I try to speak. But I'm a guy, so afterward I can punch something (not my wife!) and think I feel better.
I like music, mostly '70s and '80s rock, but I do like a lot of the swing era, or Big Band music. I like classical, though I'm not a connoisseur and couldn't discern between Beethoven's Third Symphony and Mozart's Symphony No. 16 in C major. Okay, I had to look that up in my collection to even remember he HAD a No. 16!
I'm not much into art. I don't care much for paintings, but, for some reason, I really dig sculpture. I mean the "real" sculpture, the classics from the Renaissance and whatnot, the ones that really look like people, like Michelangelo's "David," ...or was that Da Vinci's? ...or the unbelievably huge collection at the Louvre in Paris.
I love to travel. It's the reason I went for the job I now have. Of course, with the job I've just about had all the travel they can stuff down my throat. People always say to me, "You have a great job! You get to see so much of the world!" I'm a bit of a cynic, so I can't refrain from replying something to the effect of, "Yeah, I see lots of airports and hotels." But if it weren't for the job, I wouldn't have been able to take my wife to Paris in '02 (piggybacked with work) or my wife and my father to Italy in '04 (strictly vacation, air travel paid for with frequent-flyer miles), or a niece and nephew to Ireland and England just this past June (work again, ff miles again).
I love to drive. I guess that falls in with the love for travel. I love road trips, though I seldom get to do those anymore. Driving for work travel is normally out of the question as I'm often off to New England or DC or NYC, or in The South, though I can never seem to be sent there in the winter, only in August when you see people crowded around the tailpipes of idling buses to take advantage of the cool breeze coming out of them! But I digress. I miss road trips.
As to what my job is, I'll only say for now that I'm out on the fringes of real video production work. None of what I do is ever seen on TV anywhere, but it is seen by hundreds of people...once. Then I'm on to the next project. Through work and through associates from work, I have had the opportunity to meet a few famous - or once famous - celebrities: Les Paul, Tommy Smothers, Penn & Teller, Colin Powell... that's about it. Oh, and the Osmonds, minus Donny and Marie.
I like to make people laugh and try to do that all the time (refer to the breasts remark above...SERIOUS attempt there!). I even get to exercise that in my work about 35% of the time.
What I hate to do is bore people, like I'm doing to you, now. You have other blogs to read, so I'll end your agony (you know, you coulda just stopped reading and moved on!). If you care, you can learn more about me as I go along. Just don't forget to bookmark me before you zap my page into nothing. Thanks for reading this far.
dassall
World's Best Driver
(Moved here from "The Shootist" - Monday July 11, 2005)
I'm the world's best driver. Don't ask me how I know this. I just know it. Now, don't compare me to those NASCAR or Indy drivers. They just drive around in circles. And they've all had wrecks over the years. I haven't had a wreck in over twenty years. And I make right turns from time to time.
The truth that I'm the world's best driver came to me most clearly when I was in Florida recently. I travel a lot for my job, and so I'm often on the road, behind the wheel of a rented car, and in amongst a butt-load of stupid drivers. And I'd have to say that those in Florida are about the STUPIDEST drivers in the western hemisphere. Now don't go off all mopey and pissed at me, you Florida drivers. On foot or behind a desk you might be pretty darn sharp, but when you're in your car you're like you slammed the door on your head or something.
I worked in Daytona for the better part of two days and then I had to drive my boss to Orlando. I dropped him off and headed south to West Palm Beach to work with another client. I moseyed on down to I-95 southeast of Orlando, and that's when the "fun" began. I entered the freeway delighted to see that the speed limit was 70 mph. I nestled in to the right lane and got behind some fuck doing 60. So I hit my turn signal to indicate my intent to change lanes (never seen one of them NASCAR drivers use a turn signal, did ya?), and then I did...and got behind another fuck doing 55! Maybe it wasn't his fault; there was a car in front of him, and one in front of that one, and so on just about to the horizon. I figured I'd wait until the lead fuck happened to notice in his mirror that half the state of Florida was behind him, and he'd move over, but did he?
So while I waited, about one-third of the state of Florida passed me on the right, and that's just wrong! After a while I got frustrated and I signaled again, and moved to the right lane. This was satisfying for about one minute until, for some unknown reason, the right lane slowed to only slightly faster than the left lane. After many minutes of agony the front of the left lane line of cars was in sight. I'd finally be able to get past this cluster of cars! But no. Mr. Lead Left Lane Fuck suddenly realized he was slowing down the progress of mankind and darted over into the right lane, no turn signal, thankyouverymuch! Of course, the left lane traffic practically doubled its speed with the floodgate open (and all of the cars that moved back into the right lane had out-of-state license plates!), and I had to wait for a second third of the state to pass before I could get an opening to merge.
Finally I got past the stupid fuck who had held everyone up in the right lane, and then the stupid fuck who had held up everyone in the left lane. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I'm going to use this moment to make a "retired, elderly driver" joke, aren't you? So, was it an old woman who could barely see the steering wheel, let alone traffic (and my flipped bird)? No. It was a ghetto sled with windows tinted black and a rear spoiler bigger than the car itself. I didn't unleash the bird because you know whoever was in that car was returning to Miami for the next drug run, and I didn't want to get shot!
This circus went on with an ever-rotating cast of characters for two and a half hours. About 50 miles(?) north of Palm Beach I-95 opens up to three lanes. Would you think it got better? HAH! The morons just spread out, three abreast, doing 65, side by side.
USE YOUR REAR-VIEW MIRRORS, PEOPLE! The left lane is for cars going FASTER than you!
Why is it that when you're tooling along in the right lane at, say, 80 miles an hour, a big-rig 18-wheeler will pass you like you're sitting still, but when you get behind him and he tries to overtake another big-rig 18-wheeler, it takes him 32 minutes to get past it?
So I got home to Chicago, and this morning on the way to the office I realized that Chicago drivers are much the same as Florida drivers, except we can drive on snow.
I think the best drivers in the USA - after me, of course - are in the great plains states, Oklahoma City and Kansas City, specifically. They stay in the right lane until they're overtaking a slower car, and then they get back in the right lane, and MAYBE they use their turn signals. And if they happen to be in the left lane when you come up behind them, they move over to the right lane! Of course, there's hardly any cars out there. A traffic jam means that your usual 14 minute trip from your home in the suburbs to the office downtown takes 17 minutes.
Probably the best drivers in the western hemisphere - again, after yours truly - are the English. They stay in the slow lane and use the fast lane(s) only to pass. Of course, this might have a lot to do with the fact that it's ILLEGAL to cruise in the passing lane(s), or pass in the slow lanes, unless in congested traffic, and you'll get a traffic citation if caught!
But, please, Florida drivers, don't get angry with me and try to research the internet and find where I live and shoot me because I hit the nail on the head. Just go to Europe, rent a car, and drive through Rome. Or Paris. You'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
I'm the world's best driver. Don't ask me how I know this. I just know it. Now, don't compare me to those NASCAR or Indy drivers. They just drive around in circles. And they've all had wrecks over the years. I haven't had a wreck in over twenty years. And I make right turns from time to time.
The truth that I'm the world's best driver came to me most clearly when I was in Florida recently. I travel a lot for my job, and so I'm often on the road, behind the wheel of a rented car, and in amongst a butt-load of stupid drivers. And I'd have to say that those in Florida are about the STUPIDEST drivers in the western hemisphere. Now don't go off all mopey and pissed at me, you Florida drivers. On foot or behind a desk you might be pretty darn sharp, but when you're in your car you're like you slammed the door on your head or something.
I worked in Daytona for the better part of two days and then I had to drive my boss to Orlando. I dropped him off and headed south to West Palm Beach to work with another client. I moseyed on down to I-95 southeast of Orlando, and that's when the "fun" began. I entered the freeway delighted to see that the speed limit was 70 mph. I nestled in to the right lane and got behind some fuck doing 60. So I hit my turn signal to indicate my intent to change lanes (never seen one of them NASCAR drivers use a turn signal, did ya?), and then I did...and got behind another fuck doing 55! Maybe it wasn't his fault; there was a car in front of him, and one in front of that one, and so on just about to the horizon. I figured I'd wait until the lead fuck happened to notice in his mirror that half the state of Florida was behind him, and he'd move over, but did he?
So while I waited, about one-third of the state of Florida passed me on the right, and that's just wrong! After a while I got frustrated and I signaled again, and moved to the right lane. This was satisfying for about one minute until, for some unknown reason, the right lane slowed to only slightly faster than the left lane. After many minutes of agony the front of the left lane line of cars was in sight. I'd finally be able to get past this cluster of cars! But no. Mr. Lead Left Lane Fuck suddenly realized he was slowing down the progress of mankind and darted over into the right lane, no turn signal, thankyouverymuch! Of course, the left lane traffic practically doubled its speed with the floodgate open (and all of the cars that moved back into the right lane had out-of-state license plates!), and I had to wait for a second third of the state to pass before I could get an opening to merge.
Finally I got past the stupid fuck who had held everyone up in the right lane, and then the stupid fuck who had held up everyone in the left lane. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I'm going to use this moment to make a "retired, elderly driver" joke, aren't you? So, was it an old woman who could barely see the steering wheel, let alone traffic (and my flipped bird)? No. It was a ghetto sled with windows tinted black and a rear spoiler bigger than the car itself. I didn't unleash the bird because you know whoever was in that car was returning to Miami for the next drug run, and I didn't want to get shot!
This circus went on with an ever-rotating cast of characters for two and a half hours. About 50 miles(?) north of Palm Beach I-95 opens up to three lanes. Would you think it got better? HAH! The morons just spread out, three abreast, doing 65, side by side.
USE YOUR REAR-VIEW MIRRORS, PEOPLE! The left lane is for cars going FASTER than you!
Why is it that when you're tooling along in the right lane at, say, 80 miles an hour, a big-rig 18-wheeler will pass you like you're sitting still, but when you get behind him and he tries to overtake another big-rig 18-wheeler, it takes him 32 minutes to get past it?
So I got home to Chicago, and this morning on the way to the office I realized that Chicago drivers are much the same as Florida drivers, except we can drive on snow.
I think the best drivers in the USA - after me, of course - are in the great plains states, Oklahoma City and Kansas City, specifically. They stay in the right lane until they're overtaking a slower car, and then they get back in the right lane, and MAYBE they use their turn signals. And if they happen to be in the left lane when you come up behind them, they move over to the right lane! Of course, there's hardly any cars out there. A traffic jam means that your usual 14 minute trip from your home in the suburbs to the office downtown takes 17 minutes.
Probably the best drivers in the western hemisphere - again, after yours truly - are the English. They stay in the slow lane and use the fast lane(s) only to pass. Of course, this might have a lot to do with the fact that it's ILLEGAL to cruise in the passing lane(s), or pass in the slow lanes, unless in congested traffic, and you'll get a traffic citation if caught!
But, please, Florida drivers, don't get angry with me and try to research the internet and find where I live and shoot me because I hit the nail on the head. Just go to Europe, rent a car, and drive through Rome. Or Paris. You'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
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