Day #3: Driving. Aggressively.

I know people who don't like to drive. I can't relate. I love driving. I love driving so much that I chose to forgo the traditional sit-on-a-beach-while-drinking-fruity-drinks honeymoon in favor of a five-week cross country road trip.

I believe my passion for driving is best expressed through my lead foot.

I haul ass. When I say "I haul ass" I don't mean "60mph in a 55." I mean, "Your car insurance rates go up when I am on the road." I mean, "Hitchhikers wave me along when I pull over to offer them a ride because they feel walking along a freeway is safer." I mean "I've been pulled over for driving so fast it was considered reckless driving."

Fact. It cost me $378 if you include the court fees.

Between August of 1996 and now I have been pulled over 23 times.

That's an average of [pause while I pull up computer calculator and figure this out] 1.64 conversations/year that started with "Do you know why I pulled you over today, ma'am?"

Before I started paying my own car insurance, it was also an average of 1.64 really uncomfortable and apolgetic conversations with my parents.

I always thought my aggressive driving tendancies were a feature of my youth. In college, I pictured myself as a 30-something driving along Huguenot Rd. on my way to work, and throwing my fist up in the air and griping -- ideally, in a voice reminiscent of Betty Davis in "Golden Girls" -- "Dagnabbit, those youngins' and their fast cars!" as a teenager driving 2 miles over the speed limit passed me on the right.

Well, I got pulled over last week so clearly that dream hasn't manifested.

I blame this partially on where I learned to drive (because why take personal responsibility when you can blame it on Washington D.C.?). You cannot be a wimpy driver on I495.

Pause. Correction: You can be a wimpy driver on I495. We call those people "The Cause of Traffic" and I wholly condone any honking or heckling directed at them.

You don't get on the Beltway for a Sunday drive. You don't get on there and slow down to stare at exit signs. You don't merge into one of the 11 lanes of traffic and sing a little ditty while you text your BFF and admire the tire debris.

You get on there and you are in pole position, people. You are pedal-to-the-floor, blinkers-optional, all-systems-go driving like you are about to have a baby next to the brake pedal.

And if you aren't, you're just pissing me off.

Story:

So I'm driving to the beach this summer and the road is (not suprisingly) littered with minivans wearing plastic storage container hats that must seriously increase their drag because these bad boys are going slow.

The roads to the beach are primarily four lanes across, two in each direction. Inevitably, I am locked in some kind of Drag Race from Another Dimension in which the strategy is go as slowly as possible to the final destination.

And its a dead heat.

I find myself narratoring the event like a race announcer:

And the Chrysler Town and Country begins to pull away! The driver of the Plymouth Voyager must have had to hand out snack packs to the backseat passengers! Oh, wait! But here comes the Voyager ... she's closing in! She's been gaining momentum ever since little Bobby claimed he had to go wee-wee...

In these moments, as I sit in my Subaru amidst the cornfields and WalMarts, that I imagine myself able to move around the cars on the road like apps on my iPhone. Just press the car, hold, and then **wiggle wiggle** and suddenly the minivan is at my command. Then I could **swish to the left** and toss the minivan off my homescreen [road], thrust my lead foot to the floor and resume pole position.

Until the world comes around to my colorful brand of driving, I'll attempt to sit contentedly behind the slowskies. In the mean time, I suggest you prepare yourself:

Check to make sure you are well-insured and stay the hell out of my way.