Paranoia Strikes Deep
In the hundred miles between Portland and the Oregon Coast, I've become convinced that the state has instituted a traffic pattern strictly for the purpose of keeping the number of Californians on the road from growing out of control. It's a three lane configuration, where uphill traffic has a passing lane, but downhill traffic has a dotted yellow line and can pass in that same center lane. Downhill passers with the dotted yellow must yield to the uphill passers with a legitimate lane.
Basically, it boils down to one passing lane wherein one car is speeding uphill, and another is speeding downhill to pass the ubiquitous logging trucks and lumbering RVs who have been tooling along at a brisk 35 mph for the last 30 miles, building up varying degrees of hostility and resentment in the cars that follow them.
In theory, the passing lane is used for passing only. In theory, we could all share the world's abundance and no one will be hungry.
As cars zip into the uphill passing lane from behind logging bohemoths and downhill cars swerve precariously back to their lane before being hit head on, I wonder what it must have been like to be in the meeting where this traffic configuration was hatched.
"Those damned Californians are ruining our state.
Let's kill them.
But how?
Well, they all drive like demons. We could let them 'share' the uphill passing lanes.
Are you insane? Head-on collisions? Wait. Maybe you're right. No one in this state would use them.
Damned Californians, always riding our bumpers, looking like they have to get somewhere real quick, on their phones, acting all important. We'll lose a few of the locals, but I look at it this way. One of ours will take out a few of theirs. They don't vacation up here by themselves.
Let's see, we could let them pass if you can see 100 yards ahead. No, make it 50. They'll have to pass at 90 mph or they'll be road kill.
Hee hee. I think we've got something here."
That's how I think it went. If you're smart, you won't fall into this trap.
They're out to get us.
Basically, it boils down to one passing lane wherein one car is speeding uphill, and another is speeding downhill to pass the ubiquitous logging trucks and lumbering RVs who have been tooling along at a brisk 35 mph for the last 30 miles, building up varying degrees of hostility and resentment in the cars that follow them.
In theory, the passing lane is used for passing only. In theory, we could all share the world's abundance and no one will be hungry.
As cars zip into the uphill passing lane from behind logging bohemoths and downhill cars swerve precariously back to their lane before being hit head on, I wonder what it must have been like to be in the meeting where this traffic configuration was hatched.
"Those damned Californians are ruining our state.
Let's kill them.
But how?
Well, they all drive like demons. We could let them 'share' the uphill passing lanes.
Are you insane? Head-on collisions? Wait. Maybe you're right. No one in this state would use them.
Damned Californians, always riding our bumpers, looking like they have to get somewhere real quick, on their phones, acting all important. We'll lose a few of the locals, but I look at it this way. One of ours will take out a few of theirs. They don't vacation up here by themselves.
Let's see, we could let them pass if you can see 100 yards ahead. No, make it 50. They'll have to pass at 90 mph or they'll be road kill.
Hee hee. I think we've got something here."
That's how I think it went. If you're smart, you won't fall into this trap.
They're out to get us.
posted by Kitty O'Keefe at 6:36 AM
1 Comments:
Don't feel bad, Oregon. Back in the fifties, Ohio and Pennsylvania were discourged from trying to
get to Virginia in an automobile by a maniacal
death-trap teenage chicken
racing beer-drunk coal trucker thing called...
(dum dum dummmm!) The West
Virginia Turnpike. Three
lanes, Mlle. Chatette:
yuh gotcher left side an'
yer raight side and yer
suicide! (Very. funny.
officer! May we proceed
now at our own risks or must we endure more gems
of mountain law enforcement wisdom?
Now yew jes watch yer
mouth. If they wuz a moving violation for smart
ass, I'd be moved to violate yer entire damn trip with a whole wad of $200 tickets! How would'ye like that, huh?
This appalachian powder
keg was disfused at the last moment by an odd sound
of squeakysqueakysqeaky etc
and all eyes turned from the berm to the mid-lane.
Oh dear god, said my wife
quietly, what...is that.
The cop was blase. Aw shit,
Ma'am, that's jest thet
little internationally renowned astrologer boy
from Engeland? They Queen
she made him a knaight an'
stuff. He's all pathetic an' crippled up which is
why he has him thet little
electric motor chair? He
cain't speak niether an'
he has him a kinda speaker
box thing sounds like this
H U L L O O F F I C E R
W A S I G O I N G T O O
F A S T H A H A H A ! !
I don't know how he does
them execremation points, but they in there alright.
Why the wig? He looks
like Senor Wences' Johnny
with horn rims.
Well, someone tole him they wuz a big ole girls' Catholic boarding school
in the mountains up beyond
Beckley an' he been trying to get up there for a month. I couldn't see how
the hell a little ole cripple boy from Engeland
would know his way around
over here so I jest axed
him straight out, "How the hell," I said, "do yew know where the hell yew
are going?" You know what that brilliant little crippled-up fucker said? No. What.
B Y T H E S T A R S
Y O U I D I O T H A
H A H A ! !
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