Waging War

This morning, I did battle with the bane of my existance: tailgaters.

There I was, driving down the road, listening to a lovely new CD, doing the speed limit, and generally having a wonderful time. Then BAM!

I looked in the rearview mirror to see a white minivan all up in my business. What was worse, it had "AIRPORT TAXI" painted in mocking letters on the windsheild. To most people, that would probably indicate simply that it was an airport taxi, but not to me. What it meant to me was that the stupid thing would be following me. All the way to work.

At first, I was an unshakable rock of calm collectedness. If he wants to speed, fine, I thought, But he'll have to pass me to do it.

Before to long, though, impatience began to set in."Pass me, you idiot!" I muttered, perfectly aware that the driver couldn't hear me. It felt pretty good to pretend to tell him off, though. I looked up. He was still there. I'd like to say that this didn't make me think curse words, but I'd be lying.

My poor CD had by this point lost most of my attention. This was particularly sad because like I said it was brand new (well, to me, anyhow) and I had never heard any of the songs on it. I sighed. It was a casualty of war, I suppose.

Finally, after about ten minutes, he passed. To say I was pleased would be an understatement. Finally, I thought as I shifted my attention back to the CD, which was currently featuring, a cool, stormy sounding guitar solo. This is gonna be good. My elation didn't last long though, as the next glimpse of the rearview mirror revealed that another driver had launched a full-scale invasion of my personal bubble.

I checked my speedometer just to be absolutely certain that I wasn't the problem, but no, I was at the speed limit almost exactly. Don't people here know how to drive?!?! I wondered to myself.

Apparently not, I discovered, as I was passed by the second tailgator, closely followed by a guy who signalled left to merge right into the correct lane. I was then tailgated for another few moments by a pickup truck who passed me on a solid line (on a single lane road). Good job, buddy.

When I finally got to work, I breathed a sigh of releif as I turned over my CD to check the damage. Song number 5. Well, that's not so bad, I thought. I still have the whole rest of the CD to enjoy on the way home this afternoon.

If they don't strike again, that is.