Driving while Suppressing Middle Finger

My friend Jill used to let me drive her car when I didn't have my license.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that she didn't have her license either.  We were from Dartmouth...

ANYWAY...I remember the freedom of driving down the street.  I had this huge frantic smile from ear to ear.  Jill was screaming at me because, apparently, I drove a little bit too close to the parked cars.  She also wasn't very happy when I drove the whole way down Cranberry Crescent with her parking brake on.  No harm no foul my friends.

Then came the beloved day when I no longer drove illegally.  I was completely legit!  Which, it turns out, was not as much fun as being an illegitimate driver.

I hopped in my father's maroon 1994 Dodge Caravan and started cruising down Spring Avenue.  I turned the windows down and popped in my Jay-Z cassette tape.  The music was so loud you couldn't even make out the offensive language, but the volume was needed in order to drown out the high pitch squeal from the failing transmission.  I picked up anyone I knew or even recognized, smoked cigarettes, and dropped them off.  The long and the short of it, I was a fucking rock star.

Fast forward ** years later and I can't stand driving.  I don't seem to have it in me to want to drive around.  Plus, unless I have car seats in the back, I have no friends to pick up.  Moreover, if I did that, I wouldn't be able to smoke.  What would be the point of that?  People have told me that I no longer look cool listening to Jay-Z at bust and my post-baby belly doesn't allow me to comfortably low ride, or ride low, or whatever people call it these days.

The other day I was driving to work.  I had just dropped off my daughter at daycare and I was waiting to pull out onto the Bedford Highway.  I, unlike many others, am not in a rush because I realize that I can't control the traffic.  If I'm 5 minutes late for work, I'm sure I'll survive.  So, that said, I was wondering what the hell was going on with this man in his fancy Volvo wagon.  He seemed to be having some sort of spasm in his hand.  It flailed left to right, right to left, and back again.  His whole upper body shook and his eyes were angrily fixed on me.  I sort of stared at him with my mouth wide open.  What the fuck am I supposed to do about an epileptic attack??  It's not my condition for god's sake.  Then it hit me, he was waving me in.

Let me just say this.  If you are that upset about me easing onto a street that is already bumper to bumper, then just keep driving.  I'm sure the one car length lead will get you there so much faster Dipshit.  If I would have known he would have been that angry I wouldn't have even stopped.  I would have lit a cigarette, popped in the Jay-Z tape, put my seat back and gunned it into the traffic.  Listen, if I'm going to be treated like a piece of shit, at least let me deserve it.

Drive safe!

XO

A