That’s gonna leave a mark
The “ever-so-glamorous” city I live in decided that, after 60 years of highway repair, it was going to invest in ripping up a 7 mile stretch of our main highway and not only repaving, but relaying the entire foundation. Please note that this is only the main highway that connects one end of the city to the other. Thousands of people travel on this higway daily, so it makes TOTALLY LOGICAL SENSE TO DO YOUR WORK DURING RUSH HOUR. And this lovely renovation was going to take…oh…3 years, give or take about 15 months and 10,000 bumper to bumper accidents. Yes, you read that correctly. THREE YEARS OF ORANGE CONES.
As luck would have it (or lack of luck), I live on the west side of the city and drive through these orange beacons everyday as I work on the east side of the city. Rinse and repeat for the drive home. For 3 years I’ve been fighting the urge to drive head first into every orange cone that I see. After 3 years of sitting in backed up traffic, I would totally incur any damage to my vehicle just to drive into the damn cones. You so know that I would be the person who gets an orange cone stuck in their wheel well too.
Because of all this construction the highways have been reduced to one or two lanes. This leads for a massive pileup of cars as everybody has to funnel into one lane as their ass grows bigger from sitting so long in traffic. And I sit there and flip through radio stations at mock speed trying to find something to distract me from the people who will not let you merge.
But, you want to know what really irks me. The thing that DRIVES ME INSANE. The shoulder lurkers. Everyone is sitting in traffic all trying to merge and out of nowhere this ball buster flys by you on the right shoulder in an attempt to pass the backup and merge into traffic ahead of everyone. OH NO YOU DIDN’. Are you really too above sitting in traffic like everyone else that you have to be a shoulder lurker and WHIP by me at a speed of 95 mph? Tell me you are at least shoulder lurking because you took a dump in your pants and now it’s uncomfortable? Listen Lady, unless you have flashing lights and a siren, that shoulder has not become your personal carpool lane.
So you know what I do? I’m the f’er that pulls my car WAY over to the right side and drives halfway in the lane and halfway on the shoulder so these lurkers cannot pass. AND BOY DOES IT EVER PISS THEM OFF. They pile up behind me and tail me to no end. They beep and flash their lights. (this in turn just makes me slow down even more). I even had a guy try to sneak in behind me and zigzag around my left side in attempt to get around me. Luckily the car in front of me saw this maneuver and came to a complete stop so the guy couldn’t pass, otherwise I was going to have to shoot Chinese stars out of my hubcaps. YES, I CAN REALLY DO THAT. I UPGRADED MY SUV PACKAGE.
But you know who the worst offenders are? (besides the old white hairs that lurk in the Cadillacs) MOTORCYCLES. Just because you are smaller than my car does not give you permission to whip in and out of lanes like you were a little sperm that has to reach the egg before all the others. I do not care about the speed of the crotch rocket underneath you; it is not an excuse to go all Evil Knievel.
Besides pissing off the rest of the traffic that you whiz by, let me tell you a little story to stop this ridiculous behavior. I warn you, it’s a little graphic, but points out the danger of the shoulder lurker. Once upon a time, a man decided to take his motorcycle to work one morning. Except he was running late, so he was speeding far too fast and there was lots of construction. To try to make up some time, he bypassed traffic and sped up the left shoulder. He accidentally lost control of the motorcyle on some gravel and was thrown onto the highway at an immense speed. Unfortunately for this man that was not the end of his injuries. The double-lane highway was divided by metal guardrails and he was thrown right into and split completely in half by the metal post of the guardrail.
See, shoulder lurking is bad. BAD. And that is totally going to leave a mark the next morning.
1 Comment
“MOTORCYCLES. Just because you are smaller than my car does not give you permission to whip in and out of lanes like you were a little sperm that has to reach the egg before all the others.”
Those who get to the egg first are better. Who cares about the other 9999999.1 sperm who weren’t fast enough?!