Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Car Talk

I used to get worked up over drivers talking on their cell phones. Every time someone stopped acting like the experienced person behind the wheel I’m used to in Los Angeles because we drive so bloody much, I’d go through the five stages of grief, starting with denial.

They are NOT talking on their phone!

On schedule, I’d move to anger.

What a thoughtless jerk!

Next, the comfy stage of bargaining.

If you would just move to the slow lane when your phone rings, I wouldn’t have to hate you.

The fourth stage, depression, is the hardest to take.

The world is going to hell in a hand basket. Civility is a thing of the past.

But, now I’ve matured. I’ve reached the nirvana of the last and final stage: acceptance. I recognize it. Now that people-driving-while-chatting-on-cell-phones has a groove in my neurons, I don’t mind the languid way they drive, slowing from 70 to 50 for what seems like no reason. Or the way they turn their blinker on for 10 minutes before they change lanes. It’s a recognizable phenom, a known quantity.

And, sometimes, now I’m the person on the cell phone.

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