A Scary Reality

I hate winter. If you know me, I'm sure you know this already. I know, it's technically only been winter for like a day, but it's been cold for, what, a month now? And it is just too damn much. I would even be okay with the cold to a degree if it didn't decide also to snow just enough to be irritating for something like four straight days. For all the talk about global warming, we had an awfully mild summer, and last winter was colder than usual...just saying.

My thinking is, shouldn't we be able to control the weather by now? I mean, it's almost 2010. And if not control it, then at least block it somehow. Haven't you seen all those old science-fiction things from years and years ago? They all showed this century with flying cars and we've terraformed Mars and all that. Those are the big ones, that's not a new observation or anything. But doesn't the weather always seem to be perfect? I'm not counting ones that show this as a dystopian future, even though it kind of turned out that way. We're still functional enough that we should be living in bio-domes or something, at least. I really hope that's not too far off, because I don't know how many more winters I can take, and Audrey doesn't want to move south. Are any of our science-type-people even working on this? I really don't know, but if they're not, we need to be funding that shit.

Everyone hates bad drivers. Thing is, a lot of people who hate bad drivers don't realize that they are, in fact, bad drivers themselves. Another thing is, there are bad drivers in all places at all times, but they really come out of the woodwork this time of year. Which is great, because it allows people to meet other people like themselves! And by that I mean, it allows them to drive like crazy people and smash their cars into others who are also driving like crazy people. And by that I mean, it allows them to smash their cars into perfectly good drivers who are just doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing on the road and trying to avoid the terrible drivers, which is an effort in futility, because they're just everywhere.

Case in point: Saturday night, I was driving home from the flea market, and Rick was with me. We're in the left turn lane to pull out onto 63. The light turns green, the line of cars starts on through the intersection. To our right, a car with New York license plates is in the center lane, which is intended to go straight. Maybe straight means something different in New York, because this fellow decided he was going to turn left anyway and force his way into the left-turning lane IN THE MIDDLE OF THE INTERSECTION, whether there was somebody else already there or not. Now, I've never been to New York, and I have no desire to ever go there, and part of the reason for that is because I strongly suspect that, upon encountering a New Yorker, my initial reaction would be to KILL IT. But wait, it gets better! The New York driver successfully forced his way into our lane a couple cars in front of mine, and we proceeded without incident through the next light. But at the light after that, the New York driver did it again! He turned right from the center lane! Nevermind that there was traffic in that lane already, he was damn well gonna go wherever he wanted! I mean, c'mon, we're trying to have a civilization here, right? If we can't even manage to drive in the correct lane, then this society is just going to collapse in on itself.

That wasn't even the end of it! Not twenty minutes later, we're merging onto 275 from 71, only to encounter one of those big ol' trucks carrying eight or ten cars behind it. This genius is barreling down the highway at about 75 mph (mind you, the speed limit here is 65 for normal cars, and 55 for trucks carrying that much weight). Oh, but that's not all! He's swerving enough that once I've merged, I stay put in the right lane and slow down to let him get by me, because I do not want this guy driving behind me at all. And on top of all this, HE DOESN'T HAVE HIS LIGHTS ON. This is relevant because it's dark, it's snowing/raining, and visibility is for shit anyway. Are people really this stupid? Are people really this incompetent? I would say it's a scary thought, but it's not just a thought. It's a reality. Ostensibly, this is what natural selection is for, to weed out these genetic defectives so that they can no longer pollute the gene pool. But I can go on about that for days, and this is plenty long for now, so if I remember, I'll touch on that later. Damn.