Ode to the silver camry

I honestly try hard not to speak of driving on this blog. I spare you because, well, I hate to drive, and if I wrote about all the things that pissed me off on the road, this blog would be called road rage and not I found happy. While I think I'm a relatively good driver, I feel like I'm constantly dodging being hit by other idiots on the road. I prefer to teleport, but technology hasn't quite gotten there yet. This leads me to this post. Ode to the silver camry.

About half of my drive to work consists of driving through downtown, on a 35mph, two lane, one way road. It's the leisurely part of the drive normally and I don't usually encounter the real numbnuts until I merge onto the highway. This morning was different.

About halfway through town I approach a red light. The left lane has 2 cars, the right lane has 6 stopped. I signal and change lanes to the left lane because the lights are pretty short. This turned out to be a bad mistake.

The silver camry I was behind crawled at about 25 mph until we reached the next light. When we were about 20 feet from the light, it turned yellow. Silly me, I thought yellow meant caution and you better hurry your ass up if you want to make it and you're close enough.

Not to the lady (and I use lady very loosely) in the silver camry. Ohhhhhh no, yellow means STAND ON YOUR BRAKES! And then watch as 4 more cars in the lane next to you go through the yellow light safely and legally before it turns red.

When the light turns green, she admires it for awhile before applying the gas pedal. Again 3 more cars go through the light before we get our turn. All this time, I cannot get over to get around her, trust me, I would have if I could have without cutting someone off.

Next we're approaching the turn for the on ramp to the freeway and god help me I know this bitch is turning. I just know it. This is quickly confirmed because about 500 feet before the turn (still going 25 mph) she signals and starts to brake.

You have got to be kidding me. Oh god, smoke is coming out of my ears — I swear it. We turn onto the on ramp. I think you all know what is going to happen next. I certainly did. Let me tell you that the freeway at this point is 55mph and that the on ramp is a very long one that turns into an exit ramp for the next exit. There is plenty of time to merge.

As we near 30 mph on the ramp (about 100 feet down), I see what I knew was coming.

Brake lights.

Some background on my car: I drive the least intimidating car on the road. A little Hyundai Elantra. It is a four door hatchback and it weighs exactly 50 pounds. Well maybe a little more, but if you wanted to, you could pick up. My husband can. That being said, this car very much has the horn to go along with it's road presence. It's a high pitched squeak like clowns have on their little blow horns at the circus. I avoid using it at all possible costs because it just makes people laugh if they can even hear it over what's going on in their vehicle.

I worked that horn like nobody's business. I laid on it until it was whining for mercy. And you know what? That stupid bitch in the camry looked in her rear mirror, looked in her side mirrors, saw nobody was even on the highway, and she merged in at a whopping 40mph. The following is what she saw in her rearview mirror.

Smoke was not only billowing out my ears, it was coming from ever orifice and furthermore, I am barking profanity in a language that is completely foreign to me. Miffer faff fiffer fuff frugign AHHHHHH GO GO GO GO GO GO.

Needless to say, I blow past her (still in my 4 cylinder tiny hyundai) at 55 mph and immediately feel my blood pressure go down. Thank you readers for listening to my rant and if you've gotten this far, I want you to take the following lesson from this story:

When one lane is filled with cars and the other is empty, there IS a reason.