My journey home from work takes me up Interstate 35, which not-so-fortunately was under construction today. Going to work wasn’t much trouble, but coming back north… it was sloooooooow. Why? Because there was a section where the right lane was closed, leaving one open for everyone to squeeze through.
Naturally, there are the really annoying people who think they’re in a hurry or something, so while most good drivers merge into the left lane with plenty of space remaining, they blaze a trail up the empty lane and cut in at the last possible moment, perhaps even a little late, resulting in the harsh demise of an orange traffic cone or two. I hate that. I really do. They can’t be courteous drivers like the rest of us. Nope, they need to get ahead of you. Now. And it’s a two lane road, so what can you do?
Not much, unless you’re my hero of the day: a large semi who was tailing me at 80 mph. It was a little uncomfortable to have such a huge mass of steel driving so close behind me at that speed, but it’s not like I could pump the brakes to get him to back off—that’s a recipe for pancakes. Shawn-flavored pancakes. Once we got closer to that stretch of construction, though, everyone slowed down, so we were creeping along as the occasional annoying person buzzed past us.
After the first couple passed by, I glanced into my rear-view mirror and saw that the semi was drifting to the right. A lot. It kept drifting and drifting and drifting until it was straddling both lanes. And then it stayed there. Just moving along at the speed of sludge oozing downhill as cars… well, I’m not sure what they were doing behind the truck, but they sure as hell weren’t getting around it.
No more cars speeding by and slowing everyone down when they cut in at the last possible moment. Nope, just a bunch of us driving in the left lane followed by a very wide semi and what was probably a gigantic clusterfuck of cars and trucks right behind it. It felt like vindication without guilt because no one did anything wrong. Well, that whole “driving in both lanes” thing probably wasn’t “legal”, but I’d bet today’s paycheck that if a cop saw what was going on, he’d laugh so hard that he’d spray his half-chewed donut all over the windshield.
So to my hero of the day, thank you for making my drive home a much more enjoyable experience. As my way of saying thanks, I’d love to cook a meal for you sometime. Maybe pancakes. Any kind but Shawn-flavored.
