Alive.
Poor Samantha Jones was nearly creamed several times during my drive home this evening. I’m just pissed, even though she is safe and sound in her little spot on my street.
I realize that I’m not the *best* driver on earth … especially for the fact that I’ve only been driving for the seven months that I’ve owned my car. But because I’ve had to wait so long for her, I treat her with love and respect … I have had to work very hard and had to pay my dues as a Port Authority Whore for 10 years, so she means the world to me. What bugs the shit out of me is that neither my car nor my life have any value to random strangers on the Parkway or even on the shitty side streets of Pittsburgh.
Tonight, I just had a bad feeling as I drove the 15 miles from the Manson Family abode (i.e., my family). And after a whole lot of near-misses, I almost got wiped out by two cars full of teenage boys at the intersection of Arlington and McArdle. I was in the proper lane, but they came up the wrong way and darted in front of me. The second car at least stopped while I was cussing out the brats in the first car, and I let the second car go anyway, just because I didn’t want their punk asses tailgating me as I began the painful ascent up the trolley tracks into Allentown. But the whole premise of it pissed me off … I am truly (for the most part) a careful driver (minus some blonde moments!), and despite getting the occasional thrill for blowing through a red light or going at least 15 miles above the speed limit here and there, I think my judgment is pretty good. Further, I’ve lived in this city my whole life, and I know my way around and have always paid attention to the weird way that lanes begin and dissolve and how if you make a wrong turn, you end up four ZIP codes from where you originally planned to be. And yet, in one split second, two cars full of punk kids can massacre, or simply end, the life of yourself and/or your car.
Not to say that it’s just kids … I’ve been tailgated by assholes in Monster Trucks more times than I care to recount. Christ, one asshole followed me along the High-Level Bridge and all the way through Squirrel Hill and onto the Parkway, no more than 12 inches behind me (as I ignored the 30 mph speed limit and went no lower than 55), with his lights blinding me in my rearview mirror. MoFo. Look, my car is tiny. People collect cars like mine and display them in little cases on their mantle. Or like my one friend said, he would need two of them, so he can strap them to his feet and use them as rollerskates! Ahem. At any rate, my little car (with its little engine and therefore little power) can totally be crushed if one of those big-ass tanks taps it.
Speaking of headlights, these ASSHOLES who refuse to replace one dead headlight and therefore DRIVE WITH THEIR FUCKING HIGH BEAMS SHINING need to die. Just die. They deserve nothing better than eternal hellfires and brimstone and Her Royal Pretentiousness telling them repeatedly that they need to rise “to the next level.” Another joy of driving tonight: being blinded by one bright-ass headlight, for 8 miles, from McKeesport to Homestead. Dumb asses, one and all. Who can concentrate on the road when their right temple is throbbing into the next lane?
I almost crashed into an orange barrel on the Parkway tonight. There were about 12 of them, in a cluster, and a sign that the right lane was closed, yet you have to turn right to take the Second Avenue exit, which was the one I wanted. Talk about a split-second decision: you’re told the lane is closed, and yet you see about a five-foot-wide opening at the top of the exit, surrounded by barrels-o-plenty. Honestly, I thought those barrels were going to go up in the air, like when you hit a perfect strike in bowling (a strike is something I’ve achieved, oh, twice in my lifetime, but I almost had one tonight!). Fucking construction. It’s everywhere. Many have joked that our state color should be orange, and our state tree should be a barrel with a light on top of it. And of course our state flag should be orange with a blue construction worker on it. But for all the construction, we have more potholes than China has rice. Where is Jimmy Hoffa? Probably fell in a fucking pothole on Mosside Boulevard.
I know I shouldn’t whine, because the Parkway is like spring break in comparison to the Capital Beltway. But I will piss and moan about that when the time comes. And there are illiterate drivers everywhere. Look at Incoherent Twit … even she was given a license, probably from giving the instructor a BJ.
On that note, I’m going to bed. Ugly, ugly image there!!!
Glad to be home safe. 😀 Hoping all of you are safe tonight as well.