Drive Carefully, Should Go Viral

Virus

Part 9 of 30

Are you traveling the fatal track? For sure, I hope my trajectory isn’t on the fatal track, although of course we’re all going to die. (This is an unproven statement that still could be false, but don’t bet on it.) I myself have missed many of life’s pitfalls and troubles, and sometimes against all the odds, but I’ve noticed old age is inexorable and when they say, ‘It’s only a matter of time till you’re worm-food,’ I've come to believe them.)

The key thing on the fatal track is just to avoid wrecking as long as you can. Just like driving a car on normal roads. You can be on the interstate and make a fast, drastic right hand turn and take out yourself and any number of other victims, but usually there’s not a good reason to do so, and certainly no great call for it to happen. When I go somewhere, helping friends to the hospital or whatever, I drive responsibly and with the best awareness I have, making sure we make it there safe and the same going back. It's a thing that comes with old age.

But in fact, it always seems like people are intuitive enough even when they're going 70 mph to notice my good example and emulate it right then and there in real time. I can easily imagine them saying, “Wow, that guy’s one heck of a driver. I think I’ll be more like him.” I notice them thinking this and double down on my game, very vigilant with the turn signals, tapping my brakes when called for, and so forth. One of the things I’d absolutely love, and it’ll probably never happen, is for my car insurance agent to just happen to be on the road at the same time, see my carefulness and complete maturity behind the wheel, signal me to the shoulder and cut my rate in half right then and there. These are the things I yearn for.

But there’s plenty of incentives to be a careful driver. If you’re incautious and reckless, you know that if you collide with someone they can sue you for everything you have? We’re always hearing people complaining about the number of lawsuits there are -- and some of them are superfluous, entirely unnecessary -- but I have to concur with legal experts on the validity of most lawsuits when it comes to traffic fatalities. Running someone off the road, squarely colliding with someone pulled over with a flat tire, or even seeing people on the sidewalk and willfully leaving the road to track down and take them out, these are things good people don’t do. And if they sue you down to your last pair of underpants, you deserve it.

There’s similarities with the virus, which are probably so elementary and obvious that to explain them would be a clear waste of space and time. But the prize is often withheld from the timid, so I'll get into it. The virus is always looking for victims, so are psychotics behind the wheel. The virus could affect anyone, so could psychotics behind the wheel. And the virus, as terrible as it is, will someday fade away. Would that it were the same for psychotics behind the wheel! My one plea, Don’t be like psychotics behind the wheel. And don’t be like the virus, for that matter. Instead of fading away, if you’re doing something wrong on the road, please stop it immediately or sooner.

Note: I may have gotten a speeding ticket yesterday. I still don't know. The guy had one of those speed guns tracking everyone, and I was at least a smidgen fast.

Zero to 60 -- A Speeding Ticket Reverie

When it comes to crime, we're all thankful for speeding. There may not be anything too dangerous about it for society, like going 40 on a stretch where the speed limit is normally 40 (but it's been reduced to 25 for road work soon to begin), but it's a crime nonetheless. And that's free money for us, society, not only to pay the cops there on the job, but to fund other things.

Of course you hate it when it's you getting the fine. And maybe you feel for the other guy -- I personally don't -- but still, Better him than me / Better him than me / One thing I can say for sure / Better him than me. I myself haven't gotten a speeding ticket since the early '80s -- knock on wood -- so that's 30 years! Pretty good, huh?

What I should've been doing over the last 30 years, other than maybe getting married and having someone now to share my dotage, was putting back money in case I did get a ticket. Really, think how much I could've saved by now. Like if I'd only saved 50 bucks a year -- that'd be easy enough -- I would've had $1500! I can't believe I never thought of this till today. It makes me wonder what other great ideas I've overlooked...

If I would've had $1500, let's imagine, I could do all kinds of things if I suddenly got a ticket. Like mess with the cop's head, talking back, trash talking, etc. Acting like I didn't care, letting my dog out to pee on his leg, etc. I'm bubbling over here thinking of it! Plus, throw in that I had a wife or co-husband; we could be engaging in a domestic quarrel right then and there! With $1500 to work with, we'd put on a real production!

Here's what actually happened today. I'm coming over the hill and there's the cop. It's now a 25 mph zone and I'm going maybe 29. He's got the radar gun. There's other cars but I'm in front. I drop the speed slightly, but not to 25. I thought, "He's looking for someone faster." And, wow, before I went another 300 yards, he zipped out, lights going, and was pulling over some other guy. I sang my Better him than me song and proceeded on my way.

But what if it'd been me ... and I had my $1500 ... and a wife or co-husband? The idiot wouldn't have stood a chance! I would've dressed him down like the season's first deer and trussed him up like the last turkey. If you know what I mean. "What seems to be the trouble, Durwood, er, I mean Officer?" Then he tells me I was going 40 in a 25 zone, which till a month ago was a 40. "You stopped me to tell me that? Too much time on your hands, is that the problem?" Suddenly he notices my snotty tone, already over the top.

So there's the first ticket, a measly $45. I'm like, "Look, Durwood, I pay your salary. OK? And I don't feel like I'm getting my money's worth. You've probably wasted $100 in gas just sitting there. $45? You're an idiot." He's very mad now. "Sir, just so you get your 'money's worth,' the fine has now doubled -- it's $90." But I'm only more enraged, "Anyone with half a brain would've tripled it." Now he's on to me, "I tell you what, I'll quadruple it. Your fine is now $180!"

The spouse interferes, in this scenario a wife. "You stupid pig," she says to me. I whack her, which brings a fine for domestic abuse. "It's $45 for whacking my wife? That's all? Fine, I'll whack her again!"

Just then, my dog jumps out, and has the cop by the pant leg. Big penetrating teeth, and a jaw that doesn't quit. Ripping it up the leg, what a sight. Then she pees on his foot. And if that isn't enough, she runs to the hydrant, forgets she's a girl, and pees Yellow River against that municipal plug. It's only a $90 fine for all that. Twice as much as hitting my wife one time! That's an insult to her and me each. "Either double the first fine," I demand, "or cut the second in half!"

Well, there's good news and bad news. He does double the first fine, the domestic. But the dog has other problems, missing her tags, her shots aren't up to date, and we left her leash at home. Hundreds of dollars in fines. Not only that -- at this point the story gets real sad -- she's running to the other side of the street and won't come back. Criminal trespass and failure to yield. The cop tells me that for public safety I need to get in my car ... now ... and abandon her.

I do so. Which turns out to have deadly consequences. Because, you see, when I got her she was a retired police dog. OK? She was trained in bomb-sniffing but got too old to do it 100% reliably. Well, no one knew this -- I had no way of knowing -- but at some point an actual criminal had rigged the cop's car with a bomb. And seconds after the cop told me to take off -- and we're still trying to figure out what really happened -- she came back toward the police car, and apparently sniffed out the bomb. But with her worsened ability to smell, she got way too close and detonated it, blowing herself, the car, and the policeman to smithereens.

The good news in all that, and it's something you really have to look for to find, is that the city's copies of my tickets were all burnt in the explosion. Meaning not only do I still have the $1500, but my driving record is as spotless as ever.

Dressing Down The Uniformly Dressed

I like to dress down people in uniforms. Not to their face, of course, only when we're not together. If I'm there with them, I'm properly respectful, all the while thinking, "[Grumbling] You dirty rotten...."

I might clarify, I don't have anything against them, and I don't really grumble, "You dirty rotten...." I know people have to have certain uniforms to do certain jobs, and even agree it's helpful. If you're doing the job of a policeman, it's helpful to the public to be able to see your uniform.

Still, just to take the example of the police, how corny their uniforms are! Yet they still wear them with such pride, all the way down to keeping their shoes spit shine. I can see myself respecting the reflective officer who stays nicely uniformed in the office but pulls his shirt out of his pants when he's in public and wears tennis shoes. With his badge moved from the side to the center of his chest, like Superman. Or with his shirt open and his chest hair hanging out.

I was reminded of this the other day while driving out of state. I noticed they were out in force, solving the low-hanging fruit of crime, speeding offenses. Although this one guy went by me like I was sitting still -- I was going 70 -- and there wasn't an officer in sight. The only ones I saw were on the other side of the median. I just happened to see one guy pulled over right now, as it was happening. And I saw one who was already pulled over, with the officer strolling to the car and getting to the window.

So there he is, strolling to the car and getting to the window. And what do I notice? His uniform! So proud of his corny looking uniform! I pictured myself as the offended motorist who was pulled over, dressing down the guy (although of course I'd never actually do that. When you're pulled over, which frankly doesn't happen to me, you have to kiss butt.)

But in one's imagination: "Excuse me, officer, why do you wear that strange looking hat? What are you, a Canadian Mountie wanna-be, or do you tastes run more toward Smokey the Bear? Let's take a look at the secondary badge on your hat. Hmm, right in the middle, such predictable symmetry!" Then I'd move down to the cliche blue shirt, "So you went with the standard blue shirt, how typical ... and boring. And that brown strap across your chest, I assume that's something for your holster. It certainly can't be for looks! Because it looks ridiculous. And how about those meticulously polished, ridiculously shiny shoes! To me, shoes are like photos, I want matte, not glossy!"

And I have one more complaint about the pants. What is it about the typical patrolman's stride? Is there a regulation corncob built in the seat of their pants, inside? Know what I mean? They walk like it. They come sashaying up in a subdued Frankenstein gait. Whipping out their old fashioned ticket book. They never have their place marked. They always have to thumb through it to find the next available page. Real high tech stuff! Nutso stuff! This is what our tax dollars are buying: dorky old ticket books!

Cops are human beings. They're turned off by criticism, I'm sure of it. That's why it never pays to criticize them. Personally, I'd hate to be a patrolman. I think they'd feel like such hypocrites for giving people tickets for stuff they themselves have done. But somebody's gotta do it. The city, county, and state need the money. And as long as they're not pulling me over -- since I never do anything wrong -- I can live with it.