This morning on my way to work I wanted to honk at someone something fierce. I really want to use words here I was not brought up to use…so I won’t use them. Let me say MAD does not begin to hit the level of frustration I had as I was driving to work.
For over fifteen years I have been driving no less than 108 miles back and forth to where I work. All of that is going to cease after this Friday. While there are many aspects of my job I will miss, driving two hours and change a day will not be one of them.
As I drive, I keep my head on a swivel. Watch out for the deer. Watch out for more deer. Watch out for idiots looking at their phone while they are supposed to be driving. That is what happened this morning. A dumb driver, forget the fact that she was a female…at least I think (one can never be quite sure these days), crossed the center line doing highway speed in excess of 50 miles per hour. This car was heading toward me and my car. Suddenly the lady, I use that term very liberally here, jerked her car back in the proper space that was her lane and as I passed her, she had her phone sitting vertical above her steering wheel and she was paying a heck of a great deal more attention to it than she was the road we were driving on.
Here is my dilemma. Do I honk at her and scare her to death? Not a bad idea. Still, I don’t want her to run off the road and hurt herself. But, I wonder, would I be doing her a service by honking at her, getting her stupid attention, and thus giving her something to think about. That is if she can think that much. I have my doubts. I sure don’t want her hurting someone else. Namely me! What can I say, I’m greedy that way.
I watched the Louisville Cardinals play a college baseball game on television last night. It was the first time this year I have watched a college game through more than, say, three innings in succession. This was an important game. The team that won was to go on to the College World Series in Omaha. The Cardinals, playing at home, got beat. I am glad they did. Their starting pitcher was acting more like a drunk flamingo than a cardinal. He was showing off on the mound and showing up the bench of the Cal-State Fullerton Titans. Sure he was doing a good job, at least for most of the time he was pitching. But his rude behavior and incessant trash talking and making a fool of himself wore so thin that even the game’s ESPN announcers had enough and talked about if you had a 15 yard penalty in baseball they would be throwing the flag on the pitcher.
This behavior is fairly consistent with University of Louisville players in high profile sports. I suppose I am talking about football, basketball, and now baseball. The behavior exhibited is great as long as you are winning. When you lose, you look like a fool. I think they look like fools full time. But, that is just me. If I could throw a baseball 95 miles per hour I might act like a fool too. In fact, I probably would. I hope not. If I did it would not last long. My mom would call me up and rip me a new one. Enough said.
Speaking the rights.
Danny Johnson