What We’re All Thinking (but not saying)

Traffic Intersection at Sheridan Road and General (image 06) (Photo credit: UIC Digital Collections)

Dear Good Samaritan,

You are wonderful, noble and selfless. I applaud for those qualities. You are also wholly inconsiderate. While you were busy letting every car ahead of you, so generous and accommodating, I sat in the car behind you. Late.

I would have been on time, I almost was on time. I had it down to a science, and like clockwork, I just had to drive 100 feet, make a right into the parking lot, and it would have been a thing of beauty.

But no, you in your beautiful altruistic manner, took it upon your large shoulders to allow every car off every side street, gas station, and strip mall on that road to have access without waiting for traffic to let up.

You are stupendous, and I’m sure the people in those cars loved you. Except don’t be nice on my account. And when I honk at you, don’t give me the “You’re so rude, selfish and inconsiderate” look, you’re the one masking rudeness as kindness, not me.

Sincerely,

TYTT

Driving Home a Point

I went to a wedding the other night. This is not about the wedding, but how I got there and the wedding is just the context as to why I was in a car in this particular case.

 

The wedding was a little distance away, about a 45 minutes drive from Brooklyn. I printed out directions, and promptly left them at home. My friend brought an unreliable GPS. We got lost, paid 4 tolls for no reason.

We asked for directions.

We laughed so hard.

We banged the dashboard.

My friend, who was driving, was all anxious.

 

“My heart is in my throat, you don’t get it,” she said. “I hate driving not knowing what the next step it, I want to see ahead know what I’m doing, follow the steps, and I’ll be fine.”

 

And I thought what a great metaphor to how most of us feel sometimes about life.

 

But reflecting on the experience the way home…we made it there, we had fun, have a story to tell, made it through the bumps, the paid the tolls, and knew the roads a lot better for our trip home…so I got two metaphors for the price of one, and two perspectives to pick and choose depending on what mood life puts me in.