Driving Behind the Slow Car

Where are we all going, anyway?

The other day, I was driving down the Main Street of a small town on my way to a coffee shop but was detained by a white minivan going the illustrious speed of, kid you not, five miles per hour. It was an agony of a mile. I mean, I finally got there, of course, and purchased my drip coffee and sausage breakfast burrito in time to log on for the day, but still!

And this morning, on yet another Main Street, a large Escalade pulled out right in front of me, prompting a brake slam, and then dawdled with the urgency of a snail to the next stoplight.

And I admit it. I veered a little bit to get around this person’s slow right turn, gassed it to demonstrate how they inconvenienced me, and then was faced with the little ribbon of road left to traverse before I got to my usual spot. For yet another cup of coffee.

It would have been something if I was married and my wife was giving birth. The Escalade would probably be in the shop rehabilitating at the moment. It would have been different, maybe, if I had an urgent meeting with some president to get to that just couldn’t be rescheduled. My only excuse was that I was meeting a friend for the coffee—an apt reason for hurry if I was running late, but you know, I wasn’t late, despite the run-in with the sniper car. I got there on time.

Sometimes I wonder where everyone is going. Work, appointments, picking up their kids, and yes, going out for that cathartic dose of latte. Some people are just driving in circles around parks. Some are driving out to Colorado because they just can’t stand another second of the routine. Many are making desperate bee lines to Taco Bell and the ICU. I don’t know where they’re all going. And yes, some of them, sadly, are bad actors who don’t regard the rules of the road, drive recklessly, are hateful at the drop of a hat, and use driving as a mode of dominance. Certain drivers on Main Street could astound even the comatose.

It’s easy to become imbued with a pointless form of urgency, introduced by the automobile, made cataclysmic by the iPhone. We all have to get “there” as soon as possible, or we’re cooked, behind, desperate. And so, when I have the misfortune in tailing that lone five mile an hour tortoise (that’s one fast tortoise, one slow minivan), I’m uncomfortably faced with my own addiction to haste, and the worst part is that it’s not haste in service to an actual destination. I don’t usually have somewhere important I need to be. Usually it’s not meeting friends. Usually it’s just getting coffee, alone.

Supposing I started walking places, then? I don’t know. Forced strides, feet pattering on gum-stained walks. Ah, a dog barking! Whoa, a man raking his lawn. Geez, the heat… Maybe I’ll take the coffee to go, sip it and dare to talk to strangers. See the people behind all those tinted windows. There are people in there, right?

Photo by Damien Santos on Unsplash