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July 26, 2005
The Day I Forgot How To Drive
My troubles began on my drive back from Ft. Oglethorpe. As I pulled up to the stoplight by Wendy's I was startled to observe a patrol car, blocking both lanes of traffice across the intersection, lights flashing but siren mute. As our light changed to green, the police car aligned itself properly in the right hand lane and drove off, silent lights spinning.
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the road, an 18-wheeler, flanked by smaller sedans, was slowly pulling back onto the highway from the shoulder. In fact, wholesale dis- and re-placement seemed to be rippling down that side of the road.
Vehicles in the east-bound lanes were acting a little peculiar as well. The police car, instead of speeding off importantly, persisted in hovering between lanes a ways up. Uncomfortably, I realized that my left lane companions had quietly evaporated, presumably to join the more august right lane. Some had their hazards blinking, some didn't. All were moving with impressive torpidity.
By now, the Jetta and I were crawling at a mortified pace, but feeling vulgar and out of place, the clumsy fat kid who missed a dance lesson and now can't keep up with the new choreography that the teacher introduced in her absence. I kept checking depserately over my shoulder for the cars in the right lane to split, permitting my offensive particularity to dissolve in their ranks. Peering ahead I failed to see signs of construction, an accident, or some major apocalyptic event that would incite such a whole-hog dismissal of all normal traffic procedures.
Zombies. Maybe it was zombies.
Or...blast.
A niggling memory suddenly burst into my increasingly agitated consciousness: a fellow Covenant student saying something about people in the south showing respect by pulling off to the side of the road when a funeral procession passes...
The police car cut in front of me, the officer thrusting a hand up in the air in exasperation. The right-lane nobility, observing me thus chastened, condescendingly pulled aside their silken skirts and I sqeezed in hastily, cheeks burning, sure that I had just managed to singlehandedly offend every vehicle on a three mile stretch of road.
An existential crisis endured and a milestone cultural lesson learned: my island training in the ways and rules of locomotion are not adequate for handling the complex social road rituals of the south.
Carefully Dramatized Life Accounts , Woeful Tales of Cultural Integration , Writing | By elissa | 02:29 PM
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