bump(er sticker) watch!

There's something about driving in Southern California that has left me permanently scarred as a driver. Maybe all of those hours stuck in traffic, feeling impatient and out of control, have damaged my driver psyche.

Whenever I've gone more than a week without driving, it takes me a while to get back in the swing of things. Last week, I was in Philadelphia for work. Since I was gone, I had not driven in a while. My first day driving in over a week was this past Saturday. I was plenty tense and anxious just getting into the vehicle.

While driving around in Arlington, I got cut off 5 times and was nearly hit twice in a short 15 minute drive (just going to the bank and then coming home). I noticed something about getting cut off--if the car (that eventually got) in front of me had a bumper sticker with a message that I didn't like, I was more apt to keep fuming in anger. However, if the car in front of me had a bumper sticker espousing some idea that I supported, my anger dissipated.

My name is Lizzie and I judge people by their bumper stickers.

Tis true. People who cut me off bearing "W '04" or "Don't blame me! I voted for Sarah!" stickers I cursed at repeatedly (don't worry, the windows were closed so no one heard me). On the other hand, the one driver who cut me off and then just stopped, causing me to brake suddenly and almost hit her (because she just had to get into the farthest left lane to make a turn and she was in the farthest right and her turn was coming up) had an Obama sticker on her car. Normally, an incident such as this would have made me not only angry but incredibly stressed and anxious, enough to trigger a panic attack and pop a Xanax. Instead, I noticed the sticker and forgave the woman for not just making a U-turn up ahead.

Moreover, it's not just political bumper stickers. If the car who cuts me off is bearing a USC Alumni sticker on the bumper, the driver is getting a free pass. However, if the car belongs to a Bruin, it's a whole different story.

I don't have a car now (I drive Jesse's) but if I did, I don't think I would put a bumper sticker on it. Unless I buy a car matching this sticker...

source: coolcyberstore.com

if you think it, it will come

This past weekend, Jesse and I headed down to Blacksburg for the momentous battle between the Florida State and Virginia Tech football teams. Before we left for B-burg (as I affectionately call it), Jesse had mentioned that he wasn't sure he was in the mood to hang out and party after the game. And considering how hard those Hokies party, you really just have to be in the mood to do so. So, I offered to drive back after the game if he didn't want to stay. Jesse wanted to wait and see how he felt.

Turns out, it was me who didn't want to stay. This is because I couldn't watch the USC/Cal game anywhere in B-burg. Fine, I get that I was in the middle of SW VA and maybe the sports bars would have to pay to get coverage of a game on the West Coast. Why pay for an important game between two ranked California rivals when you can get the Kansas game for free? However, this is USC/CAL, people. To a Trojan, regardless of rankings, this is an important game. So, Jesse and I had one final option: listen to the game on the radio on the way home.

As we said goodbye to Jesse's friends at River Mill, Beth turned to me after she found out I was driving and said, "Be careful." I looked at her and immediately I thought, Oh right, deer. But she was worried about the trucks. 81 is a major truck route and a two lane highway in both directions. I appreciated her warning, but I was more afraid of deer.

Turns out there were no deer on 81, but there were plenty of trucks driven by sleepy truck drivers who had probably been driving all day and were now randomly swerving into my lane. After several narrow escapes, I was anxious to get to the half way point of our journey. However, by the time we got to Harrisonburg, I was the sleepy one. I wanted to stop and stay at a hotel so badly, but we were already at the half way point and I should just stick it out and go home. I prefer to sleep in my bed anyways.

I was scared awake when we made the transition from 81 to 66. 66 was pitch black. No one else was on the road except for the occasional car every 10-15 minutes. It was scary. And unfortunately for me, a girl who is not used to driving on anything but major roads and city streets, I was deathly afraid of driving from the West end of 66, which is mostly woodsy and/or rural.

The threat of deer was imminent. I could just feel it. I had been thinking about it during the whole drive and I just knew that something was going to happen. Driving by the occasional deer carcass on the side of the road, I prayed that I wouldn't hit a deer.

I've had two encounters with deer on the road. The first was when Jesse and I went to Charlottesville for our first Thanksgiving together. While he was driving me around the neighborhood where he grew up, a deer sauntered directly in front of the car. Since we were driving at a snail's pace, the car was pretty much close to stopping anyways. And no, the deer was not injured. We waited as the deer slowly passed by the car.

My second encounter was not as pleasant. While driving through a woodsy neighborhood at night in Fairfax, the car ahead of me in the distance came to a screeching halt. As I approached the spot where the car came to a halt, I realized why the car had done so--the driver had hit a young deer and in the process had broken his hind legs. My heart broke to a million pieces as I saw the deer try desperately to get up and run away. I slowly drove around the injured deer and hoped that his death would come quickly. I wanted his suffering to end.

I thought of that night as I drove down 66 before dawn early Sunday. And then it happened. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw a deer dart out of the woods and onto the highway. I swerved to miss him and started screaming. "OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD!" I woke up a napping Jesse with my screaming and I put my hand on my heart in a fruitless attempt to calm its rapid beating. I explained to Jesse what happened. Just then, I saw large puddles of blood on the road and finally a fresh deer carcass. I swerved again and my freak out started all over again. Jesse put his hand on my leg in a show of support. I mentally sent him a message: Please take the wheel.

But he didn't. And again, I had to stick it out. But I've decided NEVER to drive home from Blacksburg in the middle of the night again.

driving in dc is bad for my health

Yesterday was my first day commuting to work by car. It will hopefully be my last. I actually missed the bus (as in longed to be inside the smelly confines of the Metro bus and comfortably seated next to Crazy Woman). But I had to drive Jesse’s car into the city yesterday as I was going straight to BWI from work to pick him up. Yes, peeps, my boo finally came home (and as a result, I got the best sleep EVER last night).

My commute into the city wasn’t so bad. I opted to take 50 to the Key Bridge and get on the Whitehurst Freeway. Right before getting on Key Bridge, I noticed that some people don’t know how to merge properly. If a line of cars is attempting to merge into your lane, doesn’t it make sense for every driver to let one car go in front of you that way both your lane and the merging lane are still moving (albeit slowly, but surely at least)? Well, that’s not what was happening on Monday morning. And I felt really bad for those people trying to get on the bridge from 66.

When I finally got to the West End (where my employer is located), my head had started to hurt...and I was relieved to finally get out of the car. I showed up to work a whole hour early because I wasn’t sure just how much traffic I was going to encounter. Not too much apparently.

The afternoon drive was vastly different from my morning commute. Driving through the city during rush hour is a nightmare. Ok, yes, this is straight out of the Book of Duh, but for someone who could only previously speculate as to how bad traffic in DC is at rush hour, I was struck by how horrendous it truly was. And this is coming from someone who grew up in southern California, where presumably I have spent about 33% of my life sitting in traffic.

It took me over an hour to get from the West End to New York Avenue.

And my headache returned.

I was greeted by bumper to bumper traffic on NY Avenue. Oh yippee! Once we passed Florida Avenue, people were cutting each other off and I couldn’t understand why. Each lane was moving slowly. What was the point of cutting someone off to get into a lane that was moving .25 mph faster than the one you were in? My headache worsened.

Eventually I got onto 295, where I was greeted by congestion. After a couple of miles of relatively stress-free driving, I saw brake lights for as far as my eyes could see. Apparently, I was in for some stop and go traffic. I had plenty of time to look around while sitting in traffic. For awhile, I drove alongside a gentleman who was reading a book. Yup, he had propped his book on the steering wheel and was reading while occasionally pushing on the accelerator. If only I could master the art of multitasking while driving safely...

I turned on the radio to listen to the traffic report for the first time ever since I moved here. Apparently, there was an accident on the Parkway. For 45 minutes, I wondered how bad the accident was. I wondered if it would take forever for an accident to clear. I wondered if either of the two lanes were free (yes, California blog peeps, TWO LANES each way on a MAJOR HIGHWAY). 45 minutes of stop and go later, I came upon the scene of the accident. It had been cleared to the side of the road so neither lane was blocked. However, there was some hard core rubber necking going on which was the reason why traffic had backed up. Ugh. Is the 5 second viewing of the scene of an accident enough to cause a substantial delay on everyone’s trip home/to BWI? Come on, fellow drivers! Let’s just ignore the smashed up vehicles that are not physically impeding progress on the road! After all, don't you want to get home?

By the time I got to BWI’s cell phone lot, I had been in the car for 2.5 hours. And I could feel it. The migraine. I could feel the tingling in my extremities. The tightness around my forehead. The nausea in my belly. Driving in traffic in the DC metropolitan area had given me a migraine. I can't believe that people make this kind of commute every day.

On the way back home, I had only one question. Can someone please tell me why there isn’t an easy way to get from 295 to 395? Like some kind of connecting ramp or bridge or something? Is that too much to ask for?

the day i almost went to jail

We hit the road following brunch. I drove since Jesse was still feeling the effects of Saturday’s drunken debauchery. An hour and a half out of Blacksburg, I was driving around 80 on 81 and saw a VA state trooper in his secret spot. I slowed down (as did many other cars) and proceeded to drive just under 70 mph, as the trooper slowly pulled out of his spot and joined the flow of traffic. He then caught up to me and I heard a siren. Surely it couldn’t be me. After all, I was driving 5 mph over the speed limit and plenty of cars were passing me by on the left. It can’t be me because I didn’t do anything wrong. I noticed he was right on my tail, so I turned on my turn signal and moved to the shoulder. Naturally, I freaked out. I was being pulled over for the first time in my life.

The most country-accented man I’ve ever heard in my life approached the car. He asks, “Did you know that you’re driving with expired tags?” (Jesse’s tags just expired a couple of days ago). Jesse casually responds, “It’s my car. You know? I completely forgot. It was just a couple of days ago.” The trooper says in a heavy southern drawl, “That’s alllllll-right.” The trooper turns to me and asks, “Ma’am, can I see your driver’s license?” which I give up to him with an incredibly shaky hand. My hands were trembling and I could barely grab the wheel. I felt out of breath and wanted to cry. I had never in my life received a ticket for any reason and here I was getting pulled over in the middle of nowhere, driving someone else’s car with expired tags and an out-of-state license. Could it get any worse? Yes (of course it can, this is ME were talking about). The trooper asks, "Can I see your registration?" Jesse starts looking around but couldn't find his registration. I thought, Certainly I’ll be going to jail for this. Good thing I know lawsomnia personally. I’ll need good representation.

So, the trooper sees that Jesse is searching frantically (yet thoroughly) for the registration. He says, “I’m gonna run a check and I’ll be back.” At this point, I’m still freaking out as I’m trying to convince myself that going to jail in the middle of nowhere couldn’t be that bad. Maybe they’ll have good Southern food there.

Ten minutes later (trust me, it felt like an eternity), the trooper comes back with my license and a citation for me. He says, “You know, we’ll just forget about the registration.” He wasn’t so forgiving with the expired tags. He hands the citation to Jesse even though it’s for me. I asked him, “Is this gonna stay on my record?” He chuckles and says, “Oh no. You won’t get any points or anything.” He then explains what to do next, which I didn’t understand because of his accent (besides I was too busy thanking God for not going to jail). He then says, “Y’all be careful pulling out into the highway, ok?”

Poor Jesse felt really bad. He apologized profusely for putting me in that situation, for freaking me out like that. I just sat there and continued driving, praying that the hand-shaking would finally stop. We stopped at the Dairy Queen in Harrisonburg so I could treat myself to a shake. I certainly deserved one after the hell I went through.

A couple of miles later, it hit me. Previous to this incident, I was probably the only Californian with a spotless driving record (no accidents, no parking tickets, nothing). If you know what it’s like to drive in California, you would be proud of this too. Unfortunately, I must now relinquish my title.

This post is a continuation of the previous post: don't piss off a turkey