OK, OK, I admit that I’m a wuss when it comes to driving, especially in the winter. What’s the big deal when there’s glare ice and passersby have to go around my parked car on the edge of the highway, sneering at me as I wait for the sanding truck with a package of Oreos and a half-gallon of milk? That’s the one time everyone is allowed to drink straight from the carton—before the milk freezes anyways.
I really like to keep the car pointed forward and all four wheels on the pavement. The drivers behind me get a little ticked off and annoyed at my slow going on ice, but I do pull off every two or three miles to let them by so they can run into the ditch ahead of me. A little slip-sliding and Emily goes right off the deep end of panic and terror.
If I had a little chat with a counselor, I think my caution problem would go all the way back to when I was ten and my sister and I braved the Bullet ride at the fair. The operator went off on a break and forgot we were on the ride, and for a good fifteen minutes we were banged around inside out and upside down in the capsule.
A few weeks ago, after our first heavy snow, the county plow was kind enough to clear our road and take out the mailbox at the same time. That part-time fellow should have gotten a speeding ticket as, in his rush to get me out of Dodge, he left our road looking and feeling like a roller coaster. There was no way I could hold even a half cup of coffee without spilling it while driving over two miles of speed bumps!
“No Winter Maintenance” is a sign that I will always obey after my one and only time of breaking the law and driving around such a sign. Ed was not a happy camper when he first buried the pickup and then a tractor, trying to pull me out.
I get a big charge out of the town drivers who zip up behind me and then race around the first chance they get, only to be stopped beside me at the next red light. Some of the drivers get really ticked off when I stretch and yawn as I wait for it to turn green.
An unbelievable road-rage incident happened to me a few years ago after I found the grand prize at the sporting goods store. It was when the Chinese first started manufacturing authentic Missouri Valley coonskin hats out of polyester. Buying one each for my family and friends, I couldn’t wait to get home to surprise everyone with my great discovery.
A lady behind me started honking and flashing her lights while still in town, and by George, if she didn’t follow me right down the highway, still honking and flailing her arms. Thinking the gal must have had me confused with someone who had murdered her husband, I didn’t dare slow down or stop. Thankful for the oncoming traffic so she couldn’t pull up beside and take me out, I ditched her on the first field road I could find, feeling bad for running over the farmer’s corn.
Too overwrought to carry in my shopping bags, I just sat at the kitchen table wondering if the lady had taken my license plate number and was at the police station drawing a mug shot of me for some crime I didn‘t remember committing. Turning on the radio, I heard the local talk show host taking calls when a screeching PETA voice came on describing my car to a tee, saying I was transporting cats in my trunk and had smashed two of their tails while in a hurried getaway.
Huh? This was just all too unbelievable as I counted one, two housecats alive and well at my feet, knowing I would have been ripped to smithereens if I had tried to place one of the barn cats anywhere near my car!
The light bulb came on, and when I moseyed outside, it was just as I thought: two polyester coonskin tails had escaped from their shopping bag and the locked trunk and were waving for help…