I think it’s clear that the craziest, absolutely stark raving mad, insane, inexplicable thing about the world is the fact that we are allowed to drive cars. Name the craziest thing you did this week. OK, that’s pretty creepy, reader, but nothing comes close to the concept of driving a 2000+ pound piece of metal at speeds 10 times faster than we are able to run. To add to the madness, being in the car also means trying to simultaneously distract yourself using all 5 of your senses - if you are an expert car driver, like me, you’ve got your air freshener giving you some good smells, the radio blasting some good hearing distractions, your cell phone on your other ear for some good conversation, you are touching the wheel with one hand and have one hand out the window to feel the wind, and you are drinking a neapolitan shake from In-N-Out Burger (I mean, why would you not order this whenever you had the chance).
Now I’m not at all interested in making any sort of political argument here; I’m in no way in favor of banning cell phones in cars, or food, etc., but cell phones in particular, because nothing is better than the “drive home” call. The “drive home” call, which has essentially made the cell phone companies all of their money, is the experience of dialing people up that you would never otherwise consider calling, but because you are driving, and that is not enough accomplishment for your time, having an awkward conversation with a long lost middle school friend will help. And the best part about the drive home call is that the person calling always acts as if they are just trying to be the good guy, of course I’m calling, why would I not be calling, I always call, it’s not because the 405 is essentially modern day’s version of the rack.
Now that I’ve placed these calls myself, it’s enjoyable to call people on them when it happens. Now every time a particular friend calls, I always pick up with “driving somewhere?” It’s now become the test of friendship; if you are important enough to be talked to while the other person is not performing another task (driving, walking, singing etc.), that’s when you are actually interesting to talk to.
One of my friend’s parents put a hilarious bumper sticker (”Drive now, talk later”) on their car, which my friend then inherited and was forced to drive to school, parties, etc, suffering great ridicule, mocking, and ultimately life scaringly bad karma when it comes to cars. When I become a parent, it will absolutely be a goal of mine to find the most embarrassing bumper stickers to my child as possible, especially as many “honor student” stickers as I can find, so that my child will drive around having other people think that he/she put her own “honor student” bumper stickers on their vehicle.
But my absolute, no doubt hands down favorite thing about the car is the near accidents, the yelling, the interaction with pedestrians, etc. It’s absolutely hilarious, and the reason is that in no other situation is it so ridiculous that we act completely as if we have never been in the other person’s situation. As soon as someone “wrongs ” you in a car, the need to express the fact that you’ve been wronged, through the horn, fingers, crazy facial expressions, is simply undeniable. And that’s crazy, because we’ve all been that other person so many times, and then we get mad when other people react the same way - “woah calm down buddy, not that big of a deal, etc”.
The same dynamic occurs with pedestrians and cars, mainly when you’re a pedestrian, every driver is a drug-crazed lunatic who can’t see where they are going, and when you’re driving, every pedestrian is a slow oblivious old lady that is holding up traffic for a miles. When I went to school and people didn’t stop at a crosswalk, I would throw up my hands in disgust into the window of the passing car. The real reason I did this, I think, is because it’s very fun to make bold gestures in situations where the other person can’t really do anything, and one really doesn’t get enough opportunities during normal life to make derogatory gestures at total strangers.
So for all these reasons and more, I am pro car. The irony is, for all the technology that allows us to go so fast, the car is what makes us most behave in the Lord of the Flies style ruthlessness. It’s like rain on your wedding day.
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1 response so far ↓
1 Artie // Mar 16, 2008 at 3:36 pm
The In-n-Out Neopolitan shake is delicious to a Faustian degree.
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