Late Night Fiction Avoiding the “kool-aid” everyone likes so much

Cell Phones

I tell ya, people can't do anything else when they're talking on a phone. And I mean especially while driving. Now generally I'm very calm when I'm driving, in fact I've been getting better lately. I'll go the speed limit, maybe 5-7 over (tops), and just kinda kick back. I roll down the windows (100 degrees or not), blast the tunes, and just enjoy myself. I love driving. I'll go an extra 10 miles out of the way of my destination at times, just so I can have more time driving.

However, I like to step on it a bit every once in a while, and maybe go 50 around some turns when it recommends 25. My yellow Mazda hugs those turns like a dream. Just the simple things, you know? Now today I'm driving home from a leisurely afternoon cruisin', coming up to those two "25 MPH" turns I'm so fond of. There's a bit of traffic, so I hang back when the light turns green before I hit my turns. I get about 500 feet between me and the car in front of me, and start accelerating. I come to the first turn, only hitting 35, but getting some mild satisfaction. Come to the second one approaching 43, and then pressing the brake pedal to the floor instead. There's a Corvette two cars in front of me. Who the hell just had to take away my 10 seconds of fun? I change into the left lane, go over the railroad tracks, start going down a hill and passing Miss Corvette, who happens to be on her damn cell phone.

Now despite her depriving me of my fun, this normally wouldn't have bothered me so much. But in the course of my 30 minute cruise across town and back, I saw at least 5 people driving stupid. Just in general. "Stupid" as in right on my ass, speeding past me, or driving below the limit, when there was clearly no reason to be. Every one of them? Talking on their cell phones. All of this culminated at the point where I couldn't zip around my turns as fast as I wanted.

I took a defensive driving course last weekend because I was screwing with my iPod in traffic and rear-ended someone. And immediately got rear-ended myself. And one of their big things in that class was people "multi-tasking" when they're driving. Sure. But it's not exactly true with everything, or at least relative to cell phones. I can eat or tune the radio and not crash into people just fine. The problem is talking on the phone. And the funny thing is.. it seems it's only because you have to hold that plastic rectangle up to your cheek that it fucks with your driving so much. I invested in a Bluetooth headset a while back, and nothing changes in my driving abilities when I'm talking on it. But when I'm holding my phone up to my face, everyone better watch out- I can't drive worth a damn.