I want one!

I looked at them several years ago, when I bought my truck. And I liked them then. But now I see them everywhere and I want one! Want one! Want one! Want one!

A Prius! A hybrid car! They're sooooo cool looking.

Just today, I swear, I've seen like six brand new ones. Cuties! In gumdrop colors. I totally love them.

Yes I'd keep my truck, if for no other reason than to schlep the doggies. Besides, I TOTALLY love my truck.

But I'd drive that Prius every old place besides! Work, shopping, ok work...where else do I freakin' go???

Oh, did I mention I got my gas bill yesterday? Holy SHIT!

Am I invisible?

I don't even have to be IN a car to have serious badcarma!

It was 5 a.m. and I and some friends were out for a run. We were crossing the street (and had the GREEN LIGHT) when some dude in an SUV coming from the opposite direction started slowly turning toward us.

We were clearly visible in the crosswalk. But he kept coming and kept coming. I thought for SURE he would stop! But noooooooo.

At the last minute a friend pulled me out of the way as his driverside side mirror missed my left shoulder by millimeters. His window was open and he was smoking. Ick. It was a company car, some oil company or construction company I think.

He stopped about half a car length away. Looked back, then slowly kept going.

What the F? He didn't even have the decency to holler, "Hey, sorry about nearly running you ladies down! Have a nice day."

There's just no common courtesy these days.

Where's the fire?

Ok, last item for today.

I was coming back from a workout at 6 a.m. the other day on a VERY busy road. It's pretty wide open at that time of day, however.

Up ahead I saw a fire truck trying to pull out from the station, which is on a very very busy corner.

(Don't get me started on the appalling lack of foresight on the part of our local planners/politicians for not recognizing the need for a new fire station as they've approved massive development upon massive development for this area. A new station is apparently going up, but the fire department had to actually FIGHT for it!)

But at 6 a.m. the roads were pretty empty. So I slowed up and stopped a good ways away from the fire truck so it could turn right or left out of the house. It clearly was in emergency mode, light flasahing, siren wailing.

But two other cars went right on by after I had stopped. They didn't even SLOW DOWN!!!!
A guy who'd been behind me pulled over to pass, saw the truck and kind of slowed, then sped up, then finally stopped at the last minute next to me.

The driver, Mr. Speedypants, was flinging his hands around, gesturing at the fire truck, obviously peeved at having to stop.

Did I mention it was 6 A.M.??!!! Who's in that big a rush that early? And there's a traffic light RIGHT after the fire house so it's a good chance he would have had to stop anyway. But this was just too much for Mr. Speedypants. And he was letting everyone know about it!

I couldn't help but wonder as I looked over at SP, "Hey, buddy," I thought, "where's the fire?"

No indication

Am I the last person on earth who knows how to use an "indicator" light??? You know, that little stick on the left hand side of your steering wheel. It might also serve as a control for your lights.

A funny thing happens when you flip it up or down. It turns on your INDICATOR lights, letting drivers around you know whether you intend to swerve into their lanes. Very handy, indicator lights.

But apparently, I'm the only one who uses them anymore.

Yesterday, I was driving east on one of our busy roads. I was at a part where one of the freeways dumps off drivers. I was next to the "merge or your turning right" lane.

Some yoyos got off the freeway and were just a few inches ahead of me. Seriously, their back bumper was no more than two inches ahead of my front bumper. We were both going at a pretty good clip and suddenly, yoyo brain pulls into my lane. No signal, no kiss my ass, no nothing.

Just as I'm shaking my head and rolling my eyes, he continues veering left, causing a very angry woman to honk and try to go around him on the left, where there was a large shoulder but no actual lane. So he swerved back toward me. Great.

The angry woman finally pulled up and let the yoyo get ahead of her and then he did it again! pulling in front of another car into the left turn lane!

We all came to a red light. And several of us drivers were looking around at each other asking silently through gestures, "What the F...?" Except the angry woman who was flipping off the yoyo head while she angrily talked into her cell phone.

My light turned green so I got to pull out and wanted to look around to see what yoyo head looked like. (I swear, I just wanted to see who it was, I wasn't going to flip him/her off or anything!)

It was a 60-plus year old man behind the wheel and a 40-plus year old man in the passenger seat. Two fat white guys wearing some goofy t-shirts.

And they both had on striped train engineer caps.

You never know who's going to get off that freeway, I swear.

Thanking you in advance

I was driving out of my neighborhood the other day. It's a typical California hood, small streets empty out onto one large "collector" street, which then drops you onto a major street.

All the small streets have stop signs at the collector street intersections. That is apparently lost on my neighbors who love to pull onto the collector street without even slowing down at the stop sign. Usually right in front of me.

And what do you do? Honk and give them the finger? I have to see these people every day while I'm walking my dogs. How uncomfortable would that be? But, seriously, they're just winging out onto the collector not even looking over their shoulder. I've had to stomp on the brakes more than once.

Maybe my dogs can just leave a "thank you card" on their lawns when we walk by in the morning.