Wednesday, March 9, 2011

In The Drivers Seat




  It's a gray day today.  The sky is overcast and it's just cold out.  I pull up Putney to Main and stop at the light.  A young woman with a baby stroller crosses in front of me followed by some guy in a suit trying hard to overtake her.  (Asshole)  Just as the light changes two college guys pass me in a light blue Camry acting like Steve McQueen and James Dean.  (Seriously? In a Camry?)  Then I see the two young ladies who were obviously not adequately dressed for such a chilly day.  I just shake my head and drive on.  The Kroger parking lot was pretty packed to be 3:30 on a Wednesday afternoon.  I found what I needed in five minutes flat.  So did everybody else.  Two registers were open--but only the two.  And the lines were looking like those at a carnival ride.  The woman in front of me was complaining about it the whole time I was standing there doing the "move the hell out of the way" shuffle for the other shoppers.  But someone must have heard her swan song because they opened another register.  Where did all these people come from?  Finally, back in my car and moving slowly down High Street I pass the new science building and Jarman Hall.  Classes must have let out--there were students everywhere.  Now the thing about college students is they never look.  They walk out into the street and keep going.  They talk on their cell phones, cluster together in sometimes drunken groups and just randomly walk out in front of you as if you weren't  even there.  They're like zombies in some weird video game you play from behind the wheel of your car. But today, listening to Dave Matthews and his 'Dancing Nancies' and watching the guy in front of me checking out some poor girls ass, I just breathe deep and smile to myself.  Life.  What a fantastic trip it is.  And I am so very grateful to still be in the drivers seat.



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