People keep asking me if I’m getting tired of the drive to the hospital every day (it’s approximately 65 miles one way and longer depending on where Elijah is that day). The answer to that is “not really,” I just keep saying that it’s not the drive that bothers me, it’s all the idiots out there!

So, like, last week, ok. I’m on I-270 where I-44 comes on so it’s like 6 or 7 lanes at this point and I see this woman… First of all, she’s in the absolute ugliest car I have ever seen in my entire life: a PT Cruiser that has this wood paneling or something and the rest of it is this greenish-teal color. Seriously, you know you want to see it, or one like it —> here. I told you so, are your eyes burning? So, anyway. She got on the highway there and I really can’t see her because it actually looks like her dog is driving the car. She’s got him on her lap between her left arm and the door of the vehicle and he’s just sitting up straight there and she’s leaning over to the right. As she’s doing that, she’s also drifting into the lane to her left. It’s a good thing there was no one between us in the two lanes there. As I pass her, she sits up and I see what she was doing. You guessed it, she had been reaching for her cell phone. I got away from her as fast as I could!

It’s not that I’ve never done any real highway driving before, it’s just that I haven’t really had to do much in the last several years and when I do, it’s not on a daily basis and not usually during rush hours. I’m trying my best to avoid rush hours now and I have been missing the worst part of it, but sometimes I catch the beginnings of it in the afternoons.

I am really surprised though, how some of these people manage to live each day and don’t just kill us all as we go down the highway.

Yesterday, I was going home, on I-270, so I’m going South, just as rush hour is starting. I’m in the second to the left lane and minding my own business. This car in the far left lane pulls right up alongside me but it’s not until he’s right.there that I see he has his blinker on to get into my lane. It’s like, what do you want me to do? Slam on my brakes so you can get in that lane? So I just keep going, there’s another car in front of me, for that guy to get in my lane at all, really at any point, he would have cut me off. So he like slams on his gas and flies up and gets in front of the car in front of me. Guess what? He could have done that to begin with, right, cause there was no one in front of the car in front of me for at least 5 car lengths.

So I’m just like – whatever – and then this guy in a motorcycle pulls up really fast and really close to me, in that left lane. He catches my eye enough that I turn my head and look right at him because – whoa, dude – could you BE any closer (in my best Chandler voice). He starts motioning towards me with his right hand and then towards, I assume, the guy that just passed me, and he’s talking. Like I can actually understand him, or something. Then in this ticked off manner, he brings his hand back to his motorcycle and speeds off extremely fast. I’m left to go… what.the.heck?

I can only assume he was chastising me for not letting the guy into my lane, but again, what am I supposed to do, slam on my brakes and risk my life and the lives of those behind me so he can get into the lane?

Besides people like that, I also get irritated with people who don’t use a blinker, change lanes for no reason (especially during heavy traffic and usually because these people are constantly changing lanes), people who quickly change more than one lane at a time (zooming all across the highway, I mean, at least pause and re-check to make sure no one is going to get clobbered between each lane change) — Bonus points for doing that without a signal! Then there’s the people that pass you and then get in front of you only to slow way down, the people who you are passing and they speed up just as you start to pass, the big trucks that ride side by side so no one can pass them at all and go 20 miles per hour. Then the people who see a cop and slow down to 5 to 10 miles under the speed limit! I mean, hello, he’s not going to pull you over for doing the limit! Ok, the list goes on and on. :)

So no, I’m not really tired of the drive so much – just the morons! So I’ve found that evening visits are good for me, I like coming home on the highway at 7 or 8 when the highways are pretty empty!