July 11, 2004
RUSH RUSH RUSH!!!
It is confession time for me. It is time that I come clean with everyone out there. I don’t exceed the speed limit. There, I have said it. When I drive, I keep it right at the speed limit. Not a couple of miles per hour over it, but right at it, and it seems to drive people insane. I personally don’t get it. Obeying the speed limit is the only time that I can think of (though I am sure there are others) where most people in genneral will call you obscene things, and consider you to be an all around @&#*!%^@ for not breaking the law.
Who are you people? What are the people that tailgate me until the point that they become so irate they will pass me on a blind curve on the wrong side of the street cursing at me in such a hurry for. Are you all surgeons on the way to save the lives of a group of orphans that were in a burning bus as they tried to get to the circus before they died of leukemia? My guess is no. Most of those people are just jerks who believe the speed limit is a suggestion (this is outside of Montana folks) and feel that not only should they break the law, but all others should to just to accommodate them. I have people on almost a daily basis tailgating me, making gestures and comments (as if I could hear them) in my rear view mirror because I am such an inconsiderate jerk as to obey the designated speed limit. What kind of maniac am I?!
The best part is when they get mad and start riding my bumper. You see kids, it is called a speed limit. It is called that because that is the high point of speed you may legally reach in the designated area. Now, you CAN drop below that speed. In most places you may go fifteen miles per hour BELLOW the speed limit before you are considered to be obstructing the flow of traffic legally. So, when people ride my bumper in an attempt to intimidate me into breaking the law, I exercise my right to slow down. Sure, it is a rude thing to do, but so is tailgating (which is ALSO against the law.)
Then when they fly past me screaming obscenities at me (because they were jerks in the first place) they do 80 to make up for the time. The most gratifying part about this exercise is that there is usually a stop sign or light up ahead that they end up having to stop for behind all of the people that got there before them. And as they sit and wait I pull up directly behind them (having obeyed the speed limit and arrived at the same location right behind the person) with a great sense of gratification, and I wave to the guy who flew past me.
That happens a lot. People will speed, fly past me, and then I end up sitting right next to them at the next stop. They sped, I didn’t and we all ended up at the same place at the same time. The best is when there is a string of stop lights on a road, and at every light they spin their tires and take off. Then at the next light I pull up right next to them again. Ahh… it is the small things in life we must learn to appreciate. The little things that bring us joy, like laughing at a jerk at a stop light, that is what really brightens my day.
So let that be a lesson to you kids. When you tailgate someone, and they slow down to a crawl, you brought it upon yourself. Maybe you should have left the house on time.
