On the road again....

Well I was drivin' down the road trying to loosen my load I got a world of trouble on my mind. Actually, to be blunt, a world of trouble on the road in front of me. My main goal every day as I get behind the wheel is to get from point A to point B, (with a quick layover at point C, where I discuss the possibility of Point D with person of interest A) as quickly as possible. Got that? Where was I. Driving. Yes, it is the bane of the Guitarman's existence. I have had enough. I want to sit in the back seat having a martini while my chauffeur drives me around like a peacock on parade. I want to wave my Grey Poupon at some unsuspecting soul on the sidewalk eating a hot dog. And it has nothing to do with me somehow being rich. I just don't want to drive anymore.

It all starts with one inevitable truth: something will piss me off today. And more times than not, it is someone in the left lane. Not just some clueless cell phone yacker, but some who suffers form SISRFAS. Yes, yes, I know, you see it too right? I mean one minute, you try and overtake them, and the next, they suddenly decide that they want to speed up and deny you your God Given Right to pass a slower vehicle. They can't be doing it on purpose, so it must be SISRFAS. (That's pronounced, as if I had to tell you, SISSER-FASS) Still confused? Sudden Involuntary Spasmodic Right Foot Acceleration Syndrome is nothing to laugh about. It afflicts a good 25% of the general population, which means about 75% of our friendly cheese curd loving, Packer backing friends to the north.

Think I am exaggerating? Think I am picking on a certain group? Quite possibly. But I will tell you this: be it the 8 lanes of the tollway, or a simple 2 lane back road, if I am overtaking a slower moving vehicle, and I see the license plate says WI, I punch it. It's like some innate sense of insecurity or pride or stubbornness or infallibility or hell I don't, maybe they just hate us, or me, that causes them to speed up just enough to force me to get behind their slow moving carcass. Is there something in the WI rules of the road that obliges them to hold off IL drivers at bay? Is there something that young mothers slip into their formula when they are babies? Were they abducted by IL hating aliens and forced to undergo cranial re-configuration? All of the above? No, no, it's SISRFAS. They don't know why they do it. Some don't even know they are doing it at all.

True story. Coming back from a Dells weekend long ago, in which a complete stranger on the street turned around and screamed "Bears suck!!!" at me for the vile offense of wearing a Bears t-shirt in the holiest of WI shrines, I had an encounter with a WI driver. 2 lane road. Late at night. 55mph speed limit being strictly adhered to by the driver in front of me. I, unwilling and unable to do the same, waited for a safe spot in which to pass. And as I did, we went from 55, to 65 to 75, and I to finally well over 80mph to finally overtake him. And of course, he immediately got right on my tail, stayed with me at my accelerated pace, long enough to pull up next to me at a light and scream vulgarities at me like I had just run over his mother. All for the hellish crime of not wanting to drive behind him at his pace.

Look, I am no angel. I am not the devil either. I refuse to be taken hostage by the current wave of clueless drivers that cannot follow simple unwritten rules. Driving for me now has become a daily struggle. Avoiding the idiots and assholes has become a futile endeavor. It's like driving through a forest of redwoods. They are everywhere. I should probably feel sorry for those afflicted by SISRFAS, as they have a disease and don't even know it. But I don't. I want to trade in my car for a tank, and squash them into road kill. Love your fellow man, yada, yada, yada. But what if your fellow man has some little insecurity that won't allow this fellow man to drive his car faster than them? Where is that in the bible? I am sure that if I got to ask God one question, it would be this: why won't drivers from WI let me pass them? And I am sure his answer would be something like, "Because the Bears suck!" Maybe the little image of Calvin urinating on a Packers helmet on the back of my van has a little to do with it. But they don't see that until they are sucking up my exhaust fumes. Where is that jar of Grey Poupon?