Further Leonard Adventures

Yesterday, on my drive home two separate and incredibly disturbing things happened.

Thing #1
A driver changed lanes and moved right behind me.  No, that's not the disturbing part.  I saw the driver in my rearview mirror, and s/he was grinning at me.  I did not recognize this person.  They had white hair cropped short and I still don't know the person's gender; I couldn't tell (and it's not really relevant to the story).  But s/he appeared to be grinning at me -- not just smiling, but full on, teeth showing, grinning.

I didn't know this person.  I tried to surreptitiously look around me.  Was there something hilarious happening around me on the highway?  Was the back end of my car suddenly amusing?  I don't have any bumper stickers on my car nor do I have a vanity license plate, so there was nothing funny for the grinning person to read.  I was wearing sunglasses, so the person couldn't seem me continuing to glance in my rear view mirror to check on them.  But every time I did, they were still grinning.  Their FACE WASN'T MOVING.  AT ALL.  Just frozen in that psychotic, unblinking, perma-grin, with several white teeth showing.  For the next quarter of a mile in stop-and-go rush hour traffic.

And all I could think was, This is what happens when you tell women to smile all the time!  We get psychopaths following us down the highway with a facial expression that would give Jared Leto a run for his money.

He's so much prettier when he smiles!

Thing #2
Not ten minutes later during the same commute, I was nearly killed!  Well, if not killed, then nearly severely injured!

I was in the exit lane to go from one interstate to the other, and traffic was backed up.  We were all at an almost complete stop, brake lights for as far as the eye could see.  And it wasn't a sudden "oh crap, everyone is stopping!" kinda deal.  We were pretty much on our brakes from the time we turned on our blinkers to get into that lane (those of us conscientious drivers who actually use our blinkers, that is).  So I'm sitting there, paying attention to the cars in front of me, and when I hear super loud tire squealing from behind.

I immediately glance out my side mirror, and I can see a burgundy car barreling toward me.  The driver who was immediately behind me pulled all the way on the shoulder (to the right), another driver was pulling toward the left, to get out of this maniac's way.  The maniac (a young woman, BTW) started to pull toward the left as she was squealing her brakes and narrowly avoided slamming into me -- me, who had nowhere else to go.  And then she had the nerve to still try to get into said exit lane.  I gestured broadly Please!  Go Ahead!  I didn't want to be anywhere near her.

Is it any wonder I continually look for jobs that would allow me to work from home?  Oh, except I don't have a home (see:  Disaster Destruction Displacement 2016).  More on that later...

Commuter Communication

I have a forty-minute commute to teach.  Forty minutes.  That's one way, against the flow of traffic, assuming there are no major sporting events happening downtown.  Needless to say, I have lots of time to think in the car.

Sure, sometimes I think about my lesson plans and what we're going to do in class that day.  Sometimes I might think of blog posts or other pieces of brilliance.  But most of the time, it's pretty random.  I've even startled myself with some of the randomness of it all.

For example, what started out as thinking of class discussions...

Lysistrata ==> wordplay, sexual puns ==> double entrendre ==> entendre is French for "listen," so a "double entendre" means to listen twice ==> J'entends, tu entends, il/elle/on entend, nous entendons, vous entendez, ils entendent.

Holy crap, I remember how to conjugate entendre!  I haven't had French since high school.

The rest of the time it's not nearly as interesting; more along the lines of

Traffic.
Traffic.
Traffic.
I'm hungry. Do I have snacks in the car? Fuck, are we stopping? What happens if my blood sugar drops on the highway. Does that count as a medical emergency? "Cause of crash: lack of snacks."
Traffic.
Traffic.
Traffic.
I have to pee. I have to pee really badly. Why didn't I pee before I left??
Fuck you, other car!
I REALLY have to pee. Maybe I should wear Depends in the car like that crazy NASA woman who went on the stalker road trip. I don't understand how people can do that. I REALLY have to pee, but I don't think I could just make myself pee in the car, even if I was wearing Depends.
Traffic.
Traffic.
Like that one time we were at the lake and -- FUCK YOU!
I really had to pee then, too, but it was hard to make myself pee in the lake while treading water so I didn't drown. How many times have I almost drowned? Two, I think. Maybe three.  Is it any wonder I don't go swimming?
Traffic.
Are we seriously stopping again? Why can't I just fly home? Like in a tiny --
DOUCHEBAG!
Douchebag. Douchebag. Douchebag.
-- airplane. 

I've also been lucky enough to see some strange and interesting sights on my daily commutes, including but not limited to:

• A bright green Ford Mustang with the license plate G-LNTERN
• An SUV with the license plate TA2D UP
• A sobriety test happening at 2:30 in the afternoon -- well done, madam!
• What I thought were two people having sex on a motorcycle (they weren't).
•  The shadow of an airplane overhead during which time I had a Skyrim flashback, and I seriously thought it was a dragon (it wasn't).

And just think:  I get to do this approximately ninety more times before the end of the semester.  Yay me!

(Image courtesy of ICanHasCheezburger.com)