By: Wyatt H Knott [2005-11-22]

The Thing I Hate Most

or "What I Hated During my Summer Vacation"

If I'm going to bitch about anything, you have to first let me get the THING I HATE MOST out of my system. After this I'll be able to move on to all the other shit that I hate - the common, everyday shit, the funny shit. But first, without a doubt, I've got to say: I hate driving.

Oh c'mon, come back. I know, it's passé. Get over it. I hate people who think they've heard everything there is to say on a subject. You think I have a problem? OK, yes, I drive fast. I rarely get passed by anyone. I have a laser detector and I keep a sharp eye on overpasses, onramps, and suspicious clumps of bushes. I have gotten my share of speeding tickets. Still, I'm the guy behind you flashing his high beams and flicking the left turn signal, begging you to move over so I can resume my regular cruising speed of 80 mph. I'm the one passing you on the right. I'm the one who doesn't slow down very much in construction zones. Do I scare you? Do you think I'm unsafe? Do you try and get my plate number so you can call *911 on your cell phone? Sit down, shut up and listen, because the odds are, if you're an American, YOU are the problem. And I have just one thing to say to you ignorant American drivers: Will you please just get out of my way?

Don't think I'm not talking about you. I mean the whole great unwashed masses of asses out there, including you, your Auntie Fran and her nasty-smelling poodle too. No, I am not in a fucking hurry, I drive like this all the time and it doesn't matter where I'm going, there's no excuse for you to be in my way. Do you ever look in you rearview mirror? Do you even know you have a rear view mirror? You are the problem.

Do you ride the brakes? No, of course you don't but let me ask you this: do you ever brake to keep your speed under the limit when there's no one in front of you?

Do you get in the long line at the toll plaza? No? Then who the hell are all those people?

When you see a sign for a lane drop do you merge before the lane drops? Do you know what the zipper effect is, zipperhead?

Do you think YIELD means STOP? Then why the fuck are you stopping at the top of the on-ramp? Don't you know you can't merge unless you are at speed? How do you ever expect to get in? Of course, now that you're stopped, there's no way you will ever find a space long enough for you to accelerate into. That is, not without someone reaming you a new asshole with a Chevy. From a dead stop at the top of the ramp it's going to be tough to break into anything other than a sweat. You're a dumbass and you are the problem.

You think you have a right to change lanes when you put your turn signal on, even if there's a line of cars in the lane you want to get into. You think people should make room to let you in. When you're doing the speed limit in the right hand lane and someone merges onto the highway, you think you should get over into the left hand lane, even when I'm coming up on you at 85.

You get back into the left lane after you let me go by, even when there's no one in front of you in the right lane. You travel at the same speed as the car in the lane next to you. You think that when you're in the left hand lane doing ten over the limit that you have the right to stay there just because you're already speeding? Oh yeah, you are part of the problem.

If you're the cocksucker who speeds up when I try to pass you on the right but won't get out of the fast lane to let me go by... Hombre, if we ever meet at a rest stop some day . did I mention that I carry a machete behind the seat? Really handy for trimming hedges and settling traffic disputes. Don't even mention "road rage" to me unless you're willing to accept the consequences that come with being part of the problem. Self-righteousness will only net you an insurance claim. I hope you have good health coverage.

Seriously, I believe the best place to have a bad driver is receding in my rear view mirror. That means that the best place for you is eating my dust. And since you are all god-awful drivers, you force me to fly down the road, passing menace after menace, forever attempting to put you all behind me. It's that or be trapped in a slow pack of morons. It's your fault I drive like this.

Let's be clear, it's not what I drive, it's how I drive it. I see 57 year-old Q-tip lookin' motherfuckers with "Dr. Teeth" vanity plates on their sports cars doing 60 in a 65. I drive a rice-burning straight-4 and I regularly blow everyone's doors off. Not because my car is better, obviously, but because I'm willing to get on the gas and stay on the gas. I make good lane change choices. I can usually find a hole to wiggle through.

Yes, I can get through, if you'd only get out of the way and no, I will not just get caught at the next light. I take the racing line through every turn whenver possible. When it's not possible, I have no problems changing to the empty lane in the middle of the turn and romping the fuck out of the accelerator. I know what my car can handle before I lose traction and I know what to do when it does go. Do you? Really? Have you ever actually recovered a skid or did you just see Bullitt one time too many?

You will say that there's no point in passing because there's always someone else in front of me. You are an idiot. The slowest cars set the pace by blocking the road. If I can get around the worst offenders, I can break free until I hit the next blockage. In those gaps I can really improve my average speed by bursting to 90 or 100 mph.

Yes, I actually do get there faster than you. My times are always better than whoever I'm talking to. What takes others four or five hours, I do in three and a half. What takes them twenty minutes, I can do in seven. And yes, it does matter if I only save 30 seconds. Over the course of a lifetime I will log many fewer hours spent behind the wheel for a given number of miles than you. The savings add up. Driving fast is effectively adding years to my life.

Stop arguing with me. Let me tell you something: we need mandatory driving school for everyone before you can get your license, and it needs to be taught by someone other than the fat-ass high school football coach in the off season. You should have to demonstrate that you know how to parallel park, back up in a straight line using only your mirrors, and make a three point turn without using my damn driveway. Driving school should also require a highway course: merge onto the interstate, stay in your lane until there is room for you to move over and use your signals when you do. Accelerate into your lane changes, etc. etc. Pay attention, we've been through this.

It wouldn't hurt to make everyone take a high speed driving course while we're at it, to teach you people that driving fast doesn't have to be unsafe when everyone understands the rules. And wake up, we've got to have mandatory re-testing every five years and it should be just as hard or harder to get and keep your license as you get older, not easier. If you don't pass, too bad so sad, take the fucking bus gramma. Let's get these addle-brained geriatrics off the road, shall we? It's better for everyone concerned, especially me. Just because you married some fat-assed office flunky who can afford to keep you like a pet dog doesn't necessarily mean you get to stay an SUV-driving road-hogging soccer-bitch until you're fucking old and senile and you run over a crowd of Japanese tourists in the pedestrian mall.

OK, listen, I can be reasonable. What we really need to do is institute Autobahn rules on every Federally funded highway in the country. What are the Autobahn rules? Damn, I was wondering how long it was going to take you to ask:
  • Always watch your mirrors
  • Let faster cars pass
  • Left Turning Signal = Move!
  • Never pass on the right, only pass on the left
  • Pass quickly
  • Do not tailgate
  • Right lane slow
  • Center lane faster
  • Left lane fastest
May the best driver win.
is this a pretty bad article? [2005-11-22 00:06:43] casey
Your commitment to getting the "Autobahn rules" instituted doesn't involve you instituting the rules on your own, before the government mandates it?
Preach it, brother! [2005-11-22 02:20:25] Hatless Jacques
Few things, though:
1). Only 80 mph? Around here that's only five miles above the interstates' speed limit. I've done that shit in a blizzard.
2). You put a lot of emphasis on not being able to get into the other lane. This confuses me since I've never had a problem wedging my way into the next lane. Most people slow to avoid collisions.
3). The right lane can also be used for passing.
4). No one gets there faster than me. That is an empirically proven fact.

I could add a whole ten more pages on mountain driving though. Jesus, people. Truck escape ramps are not for picnics.
not that you're not insane [2005-11-22 04:21:01] posthumous
but I do get pissed when people who drive like you describe tell me that they're safe drivers. Like the woman who totaled my car by getting rearended in the right lane of a highway. I wasn't there with her, but I knew how long it took her to accelerate to highway speed after she merged.
No Speed Limit! [2005-11-22 04:45:14] König Prüße, GfbAEV
Ah! I can remember living in Montana and Nevada when there was no speed limit. I hear that the commuters are spending 100 hours in traffic per year. My courier job, they told me to deliver fast, don't worry about tickets-we can fix them as long as you don't hit anybody. And they did! I drove on the side-walk, wrong way on one-way streets, and too fast. For breaks out of traffic, I got deliveries to the US Senate which was all day in the same building. Or the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon, mostly all day. I look at these highways designed for hi-speed driving and all of the cars are parked, basically, and going along at 5-10 mph and I wonder are these people crazy. But cell-phoning from your car and spending a couple of hours a day listening to tunes on the car system are a part of life for many. There are people who commute from Pennsylvania to the Washington area! Isn't there anything going on in Pennsyltucky!?!? Couldn't you go drive up and down the Pennsylvania Turnpike to fulfill your driving needs? But I'm not wasting 100 hours a year for anyone. There's hamburger all over the highway in Mystic, Connecticut.
I washed Bitsy! [2005-11-22 07:35:43] Your Auntie Fran
Dear dear Wyatt... I'm sure you mean 'you're faster than whomever'. Well, don't worry dear, stamina isn't everything. Speaking of which, it wasn't me who put that banana in your tailpipe. xoxo
in defense of pa [2005-11-22 15:14:54] posthumous
Pennsylvanians don't just drive to Washington. Some of them drive to New York. So there.
Breezewood, Pa [2005-11-22 17:42:57] König Prüße, GfbAEV
Breezewood is the closest on/off to me, but did you know that they had taken an old motel and made it a combo porn shop w/ a drive-thru window where you could talk to a nekkid lady!?!? One time driving thru a long tunnel on the Penn TP, I lost my balance and couldn't tell if I was driving level, or straight up, or straight down. No horizon! I travel for work, too; just not every day. I hate commuting! One friend used to drive 2 hrs. in and 3 hrs. to get home everyday, company credit card though. Good thing too, 'cuz it was a 455 cu. in. motor--
How you can tell you might have a problem with pornography: [2005-11-22 18:55:00] Hatless Jack
Drive through peep-booth.
But, hey! [2005-11-22 20:01:50] König Prüße, GfbAEV
Hey, you can never tell when the urge to talk to a nekkid lady might occur! Either just before getting on or just after getting off the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
hey hatless [2005-11-22 20:27:03] posthumous
I've pretty much got the zirealism generator programmed but you have to tell me what that treasure L 0 Qx10 crap means!
Treasure: L (C,O, Qx10, S) [2005-11-22 21:23:56] Hatless Jack
The suggested treasure one's character is to receive if one slays either an Orc or and Orog according to the AD&D Monstrous Manual and the tables in appendix one of the Dungeon Masters Guide. Second edition, of course. I forgot what it is, exactly, but about twenty platinum/electrim pieces and maybe a few gems sounds about right. Oh and a Cursid Ring of Blindness because players should FEAR their treasures and trinkets.
A-feared! [2005-11-22 21:54:32] König Prüße, GfbAEV
I'm a-feared of magic exploding bat guano!
meaning of life [2005-11-22 22:55:10] pithymood
excuse me, ol' exploding el guapo, that bat guano belongs to zork! i fnord my zork!
Melts in Your Mouth, Not in Your Hand! [2005-11-22 23:10:03] König Prüße, GfbAEV
Consider the wizard who wishes to cast a "fireball" on the quasiplane of ice. Is the fireball weaker because of the distance from the plane of fire? (Could all spells based on fire, wind, earth, or positivity fail here?) Are the ice creatures more vulnerable to fire because they are cold-based? Are the ice creatures less vulnerable to fire because they are cold-based? Would the ball of bat guano, unable to penetrate through the ice, explode in the wizard's hand? (Damned exploding bat guano of inferior quality!)
80 k/h??? [2005-11-22 23:20:31] k0nsp1ra70r
Seriously, thats 30 ks below the open road limit here, although it is 20 above the built up areas, at least make it worthwhile and go 30-40 ks over

Otherwise, LISTEN YOU GODDAMN SLOW DRIVERS
Auntie Fran [2005-11-23 14:00:11] Sean
I'm casting my vote for "whoever".
Merging [2005-11-23 15:00:10] Stonecutter
A friend and I once determined (through unscientific empirical analysis) that a full 85-95% of all traffic problems occur due to bad merging. You have two basic parties, the merger and the mergee. Either one, or both can create serious traffic flow problems, sometimes even resulting in their own death and the deaths of their fellow motorists. The illustration of stopping at the on ramp is a case of an offending merger, whereas the speeding up guy who won't let you pass is an example of an offending mergee. Thank God I am not the only one who can see the cattle-mentality of idiots that line up at toll booths because the automatic lanes are faster, while the manual lanes are empty.
Objective Case [2005-11-23 15:26:38] König Prüße, GfbAEV
This is so confusing that I will just revert to talking like a pirate. Whomsoever is the objective case of whosoever which means the same as whoever. HTH, but I think it all hinges of the objectivity of the caseness.
Merging [2005-11-23 16:18:22] König Prüße, GfbAEV
I once saw an airplane incident report that said, "Cause of crash: Failure to maintain altitude."
jesus [2005-11-23 21:57:36] Sean
is that ablative or disjunctive?
Differential or Integral [2005-11-23 22:23:31] König Prüße, GfbAEV
I think it follows a sine function. Bicycle Wheel Definition: If a wheel of radius 1 unit rotates at a speed of 1 unit of length per second, and at time t = 0, then its height after t seconds is given by h(t) = sin(t). That's why one can hardly ever go wrong with the Latin derivitive formal plural, Youse guys, or the Vosotros-Vos, Vous in the French. Vini, Vidi, Vichis-soise.
Negative answers and physics rarely mix. [2005-11-23 23:27:28] Hatless Jack
Wouldn't that be h ( t ) = the absolute value of sin( t )?
Mixing Sines and Signs +/- [2005-11-23 23:45:44] König Prüße, GfbAEV
A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day. "In English," he said, "a double negative forms a positive. In some languages though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative." "However," he added, "there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative."
A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right!" I am reverting to pirate-speak where no rules obtain. Har!
it's not that I'm not insane [2005-11-24 00:47:37] Wyatt
Sean, thanks for posting this despite the obvious. I missed it 'cause I didn't think you would.

Eighty miles per hour is one hundred and twenty eight kilometers per hour, for whoever can't convert it themsleves.

And ninety three miles per hour is about one hundred and fifty kilometers per hour, and equals a two hundred and eighty four dollar ticket plus a lecture about reckless driving from the Connecticut State Trooper who stopped me on Route 95 this morning.

Anyone want to contribute to my legal defense fund?


Huh? [2005-11-24 08:58:11] Sean
Despite the obvious what? I miss things a lot.
Insanity, [2005-12-11 14:13:56] Wyatt
despite the obvious insanity.
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