BLINK, people!

I have a new pet peeve: people who don't use their blinkers.

On Wednesdays I drive about an hour north of where I live to take my student to a speech therapy appointment. I skim over the interstate, through the middle of Atlanta; there isn't a lot of backroad driving. I am a-MAZED at how many negligent, non-signalling people there are on the road. I should have kept track of how many - there were QUITE a lot today. And this is not Grandma out for a tourist jaunt; these are seemingly NORMAL people. Normal except for one thing - they change lanes like they're in a videogame. Zoop! Swish! Whoosh. It drives me CRAZY. It's dangerous AND inconsiderate. I expostulate in an outraged tone at these slackers ( really - how hard is it to nudge your blinker?! It takes a fraction of a second and burns probably an infinitesimal fraction of a calorie), which never ceases to amuse my passenger. He chuckles benignly. Ha ha - glad my road rage is so entertaining. At least, I try to camouflage it by employing my Muppet/Lambchops voice so that it really is somewhat humorous ... otherwise, I'd be feeling guilty that my ungraceful impatience would be negatively influencing my protege. This way, I'm just crazy Claire, indulging in a comic railing session at the bad drivers of the world.

In my rage fueled daydreams, I appoint myself as some sort of guardian of highway safety and justice, fasten an automatic harpoon thrower on the roof of my car, and fire off harpoons, complete with an attached ticket ( which would entail a massive fine) at offending vehicles.

I mean, it's one thing to neglect to use your blinker when you're turning into your driveway late at night when no one is behind you. Snore. It's very much another thing to not use it when you're barreling down a tight corridor of interstate at 75 mph, hemmed in by sky scrapers and teeming mobs of traffic, with spaces about the size of my foot between vehicles. Grrrr.

AND at a four way intersection. Hello?! Am I supposed to READ YOUR MIND?

You shall not pass!

It became apparent through some comments left on a recent post that knowledge of Brad's new job is not widely dispersed. He started a new job about the same time I started mine - in April- and works in law enforcement now. He is working for a Sheriff's department. More specific than that, I can not be; if you are curious, feel free to ask him personally or via email.

Brad's car has been having issues as of yesterday so he decided to take my car to work. We figured out a plan whereby he would drop me off at my work and then Nate was going to come pick me up on the other end of the afternoon. Well, we went out to the garage to get in my car, and discovered that the garage door opener wasn't working. And for some reason, opening the door manually wasn't working either. Brad tugged and fiddled and pulled...and I thought, "We're going to have to call in to our respective places of work and say that we are unable to come in because we're being HELD PRISONER in our own HOME by a faulty garage door!" Finally, he got it to where he could open it manually and he held it open while I backed the car out. Well, it was a good thing he was there when there was a problem because there's NO WAY that I would have been able to heave that door up by myself. I really would have had to call in to work b/c of my indisposed garage door. I would have sounded so lame. I wonder if that has ever happened to anyone else... It still doesn't work right and we aren't using it until it can be fixed.

Unbelievable!

I was listening to a news quiz show on the radio recently, where the host asks a panel of folks questions about the week's news but in a variety of entertaining and amusing formats. One of the games they play is called the "Bluff the Listener Challenge" and they have someone call in to the show and the panel reads him/her three stories from the week's news...But here's the catch: only one of them is true. And the listener has to figure out which one is the real story.

Usually they are very obscure, bizarre, funny stories and sometimes it's very difficult to decide which one is true because they are ALL so outrageous.

This week's true story hit my funny bone. I was hoping that it would be the true story, and lo, it was. Here it is, in paraphrased form.

In Bremen, Germany, a woman called police saying that she had just witnessed a child abduction. She saw someone putting a child into the trunk of a car and quickly driving away. Her prompt action launched a massive police hunt, and the car was located. But the driver explained the situation this way: He was hearing strange noises in the back of his car, so he went to his local mechanic to help him figure out the problem. The mechanic, a dwarf, volunteered to get in the trunk and listen for the noise, while the man drove around town. Sure enough- the person in the trunk was not a child, but an auto mechanic who happened to be a dwarf.

For some reason, that story just reduces me to a heap of laughter, just thinking about it.