Go If You’re Going

Deverb-Because venting is healthy too.  

Prompt 7:  Road Rage….You can eliminate one type/category of driver from the roads; describe the poster child for this type.  

 

My very best girlfriend on earth is from Long Island, NY.  She is everything your preconceived notions tell you she is; brash, outspoken, and accented in that stereotypical, tri-state way.  We met in college, and have taken a fair number of road trips together in a varying array of vehicles, ranging from Barely-Limping-Along to, Hey-Look-I’m-A-Grown-Up-Now.  Together, we would bomb down the throughway on any of our various adventures, smoking cigarettes and blasting music, reveling in the freedom our friendship afforded us.  

Early on in our relationship, while stuck in traffic on the Hutchinson River Parkway (The Hutch), she used a phrase that I promptly stole and continue to use liberally to this day:  “Go if you’re goin'”

Go if you’re going.  Shit or get off the pot.  Speed up, or, if you value your life and rear bumper, GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY.  

-If you are in the far left lane, doing less than the posted speed limit, you are an asshole.  Get out of the way.  

-If you are in the far left lane, and there is no one in front of you and no one to pass in the lane to the right lane, you are an asshole, get out of the way.  

-If you are in the far left lane and are driving the same speed as the person in the lane to your right while there is a line of cars behind you, you are an asshole, get out of the way, then go home and slam your head in a door.  

-If you are on a two-lane highway, and there is a line of cars behind you that numbers 3 or more, you’re an asshole.  Pull over and let them pass.  

-If you are on a two-lane highway, doing less than the speed limit with a line of cars behind you that numbers 3 or more and you come upon a dotted yellow and proceed to speed up so that those cars can’t pass in the allotted span, YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE and deserve a sound beating.  

If you are any of the above people, and, by some miracle, I manage to make my way around you, you DO NOT GET TO BE MAD AT ME.  Save your middle finger, save your gesticulating hands, save your rolled down window and hurled half attempts at insults because it is YOU that is the fuckwad jackass.  If I were rich, I would have rammed your car with impunity and then strangled you at the side of the road when you pulled over.  

GO IF YOU’RE GOING.  There is no reason to maintain the position of prestige in the passing lane when you’re not going to make use of it.  It isn’t a lane for your highness.  It is a lane to GO FAST AND AROUND.  You are the cause of 98.6% of the rage on the road.  The oblivion in which you live is an addled haze of entitlement to which you have no right.  

Get out of the way, and as I pass, I will wave and smile and say, Thank you, thank you for being aware of your surroundings and recognizing that you exist in a community whose harmonious existence relies on the courtesy of it’s members.  

Don’t be an asshole.  Go if you’re going.